System and method for distributed real-time search

ABSTRACT

A system and method for providing a distributed search mechanism in a network. Network nodes operating as consumer or requesting nodes generate the search requests. Nodes operating as hubs are configured to route the search requests in the network. Individual nodes operating as provider nodes receive the search request and in response may generate results according to their own procedures and return them. Communication between nodes in the network may use a common query protocol. Hub nodes may resolve the search requests to a subset of the provider nodes in the network, for example by matching search requests with registration information from nodes. Provider nodes results may be may customize at various stages.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention

[0002] This invention relates to computer networks, and moreparticularly to a system and method for providing a distributedinformation discovery platform that enables discovery of informationfrom distributed information providers.

[0003] 2. Description of the Related Art

[0004] It has been estimated that the amount of content contained indistributed information sources on the public web is over 550 billiondocuments. In comparison, leading Internet search engines may be capableof searching only about 600 million pages out of an estimated 1.2billion “static pages.” Due to the dynamic nature of Internet content,much of the content is unsearchable by conventional search means. Inaddition, the amount of content unsearchable by conventional means isgrowing rapidly with the increasing use of application servers and webenabled business systems.

[0005] Crawlers currently may take three months or more to crawl andindex the web (Google numbers), so that conventional, crawler-basedsearch engines such as Google may best perform when indexing static,slowly changing web pages such as home pages or corporate informationpages. Targeted or restricted crawling of headline or other metadata ispossible (such as that done by moreover.com) but this limits searchability. Web resources that do not have a “page of contents” or similarindex—“deep” web resources—may be more difficult to search, index, orreference by conventional crawler-based search engines. For example,Amazon.com contains millions of product descriptions in its databasesbut does not have a set of pages listing all these descriptions. As aresult, in order to crawl such a resource, it may be necessary—thoughdifficult—to query the database repeatedly with every conceivable queryterm until all products are extracted. Likewise, many web pages aregenerated dynamically given information about the consumer or context ofthe query (time, purchasing behavior, location, etc.), a crawlerapproach is likely to lead to distortion of such data. In somesituations, content may be inaccessible due to access privileges (e.g. asubscription site), or for security reasons (e.g. a secure contentsite).

[0006] Conventional search mechanisms also may be less efficient thandesirable in regard to some types of information providers, for examplein regards to accessing dynamic content from a news site. A current newsprovider may provide content created by editors and stored in a databaseas XML or other presentation neutral form. The news provider'sapplication server may render the content as a web page with associatedlinks using templates. Although the end user may see a well-presentedpage with the relevant information, for a crawler-type search engine toextract the content of the HTML page it must be programmed to useinformation about the structure of the page and “scrape” the content andheadline from the page. It may then store this content or a processedversion for indexing purposes in its own database, and retrieve the linkand story when a query matching the story is submitted. This searchprocess is inherently inefficient and prone to errors. In addition itgives the content provider no control over the format of the article orthe decision about which article to show in response to a query.

[0007] It would be desirable for search mechanism of the web to perform“deep searches” and “wide searches.” “Deep search” may find informationembedded in large databases such as product databases (e.g. Amazon.com)or news article databases (e.g. CNN). “Wide searches” may reach a largedistribution. Moreover, it would be desirable for the search mechanismto efficiently use bandwidth and maximize search speed while avoidingbottlenecks. It would also be desirable for a search mechanism tofunction over an expanded web covering a wide array of distributeddevices (e.g. PCs, handheld devices, PDAs, cell phones, etc.).

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0008] A distributed network search mechanism is described for membersof a network or nodes to discover information in the network usingdistributed search of search requests. A node coupled to a network mayoperate as a consumer or requesting node, sending a search request toand receiving a search result from at least one provider node coupled tothe network in response to its search request. A search request mayinclude a search query and a search result may include a query result. Asearch request and a search result may be formatted according to acommon query protocol or query routing protocol (QRP). A QRP may specifya mark-up language format for communicating search requests, searchresults, and/or other information between nodes in the network.

[0009] A node coupled to the network may operate as a network hub toimplement a distributed search method. The distributed search may be inaccordance with a query routing protocol. The search method may includereceiving a search request from a consumer. A network hub may acceptsearch requests from registered consumer nodes. A network hub may beconfigured to receive registration requests from consumers. A networkhub may be configured to receive registration requests from providers. Aregistration request may be formatted according to a QRP. A provider'sregistration request may indicate at least some of the search queriesthe provider is interested in receiving. The search method may includeresolving a consumer's search query from a search request by determiningat least one provider that indicated interest in receiving at leastsimilar search queries in its registration request. A network hub may beconfigured to route a consumer's search query to a provider and mayformat the search query according to a QRP.

[0010] A provider may be configured to receive a search query. Aprovider may respond with a query result. A provider may be configuredto customize its query result. A query result may be formatted accordinga QRP. The query result may be routed to a network hub. A network hubmay be configured to receive a query result from a provider. A networkhub may be configured to collate a plurality of query results regardingthe same search query. A network hub may be configured to route a queryresult or collated query results to a consumer as a search result. Asearch result may be formatted according to a QRP.

[0011] A network hub may be configured to route a search request, asearch result, or other communication between a consumer and a providerthrough at least another network hub. A network hub may be configured toresolve a consumer's search query using a query-space. A search requestmay include an indication of a query-space. A provider registration mayinclude an indication of a query-space. A query-space at least defines astructure for indicating and matching search criteria, and may include apredicate statement. A provider registration may include a query serveraddress to which matching search queries are to be directed.

[0012] Resolving a search query may include deriving search criteriafrom a search query, applying the search criteria from the search queryto the search criteria of the query-spaces from provider registrations,and determining which query-spaces from provider registrations suitablymatch the search criteria from the search query. Several methods ofdetermining suitable matches are described, such as bidding or rankingto indicate relevancy. A search query may be routed to at least a subsetof the query server addresses specified by the resolved providersregistrations.

[0013] A QRP interface may be configured to operate with a consumer or aprovider in the network. A QRP interface may be configured as a proxyfor a consumer or a provider that do not include a QRP interface tooperate with the distributed network search mechanism. A QRP interfacemay be configured as an interface between a network hub and a consumeror a provider to receive information from that consumer or provider andsend it to a network work or to receive information from a network huband send it to that consumer or provider. A consumer, or a provider maybe configured to send information to or receive information from a QRPinterface. A network hub may be configured to send or receiveinformation to a QRP interface for a consumer or a provider. A QRPinterface may be configured to translate a between consumer or providerspecific protocols to a QRP. A QRP interface may be configured tocustomize a search query or a search result in response to instructionsfrom a consumer or a provider.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0014]FIG. 1 illustrates a network utilizing the distributed informationdiscovery platform according to one embodiment;

[0015]FIG. 2 illustrates an architecture for the distributed informationdiscovery platform according to one embodiment;

[0016]FIG. 3 illustrates message flow in a distributed informationdiscovery network according to one embodiment;

[0017]FIG. 4 illustrates a provider with a query routing protocolinterface according to one embodiment;

[0018]FIG. 5 illustrates a provider with a query routing protocolinterface and a results presentation mechanism according to oneembodiment;

[0019]FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary distributed information discoverynetwork including a plurality of hubs according to one embodiment;

[0020]FIG. 7 illustrates provider registration in a distributedinformation discovery network according to one embodiment;

[0021]FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating message flow in a distributedinformation discovery network according to one embodiment;

[0022]FIG. 9 illustrates an example of several peers in a peer-to-peernetwork according to one embodiment;

[0023]FIG. 10 illustrates a message with envelope, message body, andoptional trailer according to one embodiment;

[0024]FIG. 11 illustrates an exemplary content identifier according toone embodiment;

[0025]FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating two peers using a layeredsharing policy and protocols to share content according to oneembodiment;

[0026]FIG. 13 illustrates one embodiment of a policy advertisement;

[0027]FIG. 14 illustrates one embodiment of a peer advertisement;

[0028]FIG. 15 illustrates one embodiment of a peer group advertisement;

[0029]FIG. 16 illustrates one embodiment of a pipe advertisement;

[0030]FIG. 17 illustrates one embodiment of a service advertisement;

[0031]FIG. 18 illustrates one embodiment of a content advertisement; and

[0032]FIG. 19 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of anetwork protocol stack in a peer-to-peer platform.

[0033] While the invention is described herein by way of example forseveral embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the artwill recognize that the invention is not limited to the embodiments ordrawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings anddetailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention tothe particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is tocover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within thespirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appendedclaims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes onlyand are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description orthe claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is usedin a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), ratherthan the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words“include”, “including”, and “includes” mean including, but not limitedto.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

[0034] A system and method for providing a distributed informationdiscovery platform that may enable discovery of information fromdistributed information providers is described. In an embodiment, incontrast to conventional search engines and exchanges, the distributedinformation discovery platform does not centralize information; ratherit may search for information in a distributed manner. This distributedsearching may enable content providers to deliver up-to-the-secondresponses to search queries from a user or client.

[0035] In the distributed information discovery platform, queries aredistributed to “peers” in a network who are most likely to be capable ofanswering the query. The distributed information discovery platformprovides a common distributed query mechanism for devices from webservers and small computers.

[0036] The distributed information discovery platform may be applied ina wide variety of domains, including, but not limited to: publicaccessible web search, private networks of trading partners, andinteraction between distributed services and applications. In additionto supporting public networks, the distributed information discoveryplatform may also include support for private networks such as forbusiness-to-business (B2B) networks and extranet applications. Privatenetwork support may include quality of service provisioning, securityvia public key infrastructure and explicit B2B queryspace support. Thedistributed information discovery platform may also be applied toPeer-to-Peer (P2P) networking, exemplified in programs such as Napsterand Gnutella. The distributed information discovery platform may also beapplied to other similar networks or combination of networks.

[0037] In one embodiment the distributed information discovery platformmay include a web front end to a distributed set of servers, eachrunning a P2P node and responding to queries. Each node may beregistered (or hard coded in some embodiments) to respond to certainqueries or kinds of queries. For example, one of the nodes may include acalculator service which would respond to a numeric expression querywith the solution. Other nodes may be configured for file sharing andmay be registered to respond to certain queries. A search query on acorporate name may return an up-to-the-minute stock quote and currentnews stories on the corporation. Instead of presenting only text-basedsearch results, the distributed information discovery platform mayreturn other visual or audio search results. For example, a search queryfor “roses” may return photo images of roses.

[0038] In some embodiments, the distributed information discoveryplatform may leverage web technologies (e.g. HTTP/XML). In addition tosupporting arbitrary XML, the distributed information discovery platformmay be integrated with other standard initiatives such as the ResourceDescription Framework (RDF) for describing metadata and queryspacevocabularies, XML-RPC (XML-Remote Procedure Call (RPC)) for exposinginterfaces in a standard manner, Rich Site Summary (RSS) (previouslyknown as RDF Site Summary), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) andMicrosoft's NET. These technologies may provide a more familiarenvironment to developers and webmasters than less common or proprietaryprotocols. In addition, leveraging such web technologies may simplify auser's task in interfacing to a query routing protocol of thedistributed information discovery platform. In one embodiment, a “searchbutton+results” interface item or items may be added to web pages of websites that may invoke the search capabilities provided by thedistributed information discovery platform.

[0039] The distributed information discovery platform may provide anabstract query routing service for networks with arbitrary messaging andtransport mechanisms. In one embodiment, the distributed informationdiscovery platform may bind with the Web (e.g. XML over HTTP). Note thatthe distributed information discovery platform may search acrossheterogeneous communication protocols and systems and present resultsusing any number of different protocols and system. For example, oneembodiment of a distributed information discovery system may searchJSP-based HTTP systems simultaneously with Perl-based XML systems andJava-based peer-to-peer systems. The distributed information discoverysystem may then present the results in HTTP-based HTML or according to apeer-to-peer protocol or any other protocol/medium combination.

[0040] In one embodiment, the distributed information discovery platformmay bind with a peer-to-peer networking environment. In a peer-to-peernetworking environment, entities of the distributed informationdiscovery platform (e.g. consumers, providers, hubs, registrationservices, etc.) may be implemented on peers in the network. Each peermay run instances of the provider, consumer and registration services ontop of its peer-to-peer networking core. Each peer may interact with aninstance of a hub service, itself running on top of the peer-to-peernetworking core. One peer-to-peer networking environment with which thedistributed information discovery platform may bind is implemented witha novel open network computing platform for peer-to-peer networks, whichmay be referred to as a peer-to-peer platform. This peer-to-peernetworking environment is described later in this document.

[0041] In one embodiment, the distributed information discovery platformmay include a Provider Information Service that may include a databaseand management service for provider information such as contact details,billing information, etc. In one embodiment, the distributed informationdiscovery platform may include a user preferences service that mayinclude a database and management service for end user preferences.Users of the web client may register as users and have the front-endapplication remember their preferences. In one embodiment, userpreferences may be used to provide personalized searching. For example,a user may specify a maximum number of results to be returned.

[0042] Embodiments of the distributed information discovery platform mayinclude a monitoring and management tool or tools. Administrators mayuse the tool(s) to monitor and manage the performance of the distributedinformation discovery platform. For example, monitoring tools mayprovide information on the number of searches performed, most popularkeywords, most popular clients, most popular providers, etc. Also,performance information on the servers, database uptime etc. may beprovided by the tool(s). Management tools may provide the ability toremotely suspend traffic to a provider, for example. For public networkapplications, “spam” may be addressed in a variety of ways, includingcomparison of the site registration to an inferred registration,tracking of searches made and results returned and allowing consumerinput, such as voting.

[0043] Some embodiments of the distributed information discoveryplatform may be used for two complementary search types: wide and deep.The concept of the expanded web covers both wide search of distributeddevices (e.g. PCs, handheld devices, PDAs, cell phones, etc.) and deepsearch of rich content sources such as web servers.

[0044] In one embodiment, the distributed information discovery platformmay be used to provide “wide search” on the web. Within the context ofwide search, the distributed information discovery platform may providean efficient mechanism for distributing queries across a wide network ofpeers. The distributed information discovery platform may use a seriesof “hub” peers each of which handles the queries for a group of peers.Each hub peer may specialize in an attribute such as geography, peercontent similarity or application. Hub peers may forward queries toother hub peers either if they cannot satisfy the query or if it isdesirable to expand the search to the widest number of peers possible.

[0045] In one embodiment, the distributed information discovery platformmay be used to provide “deep search” on the web. “Deep search” may findinformation embedded in large databases such as product databases (e.g.Amazon.com) or news article databases (e.g. CNN). In one embodiment,rather than crawling such databases, indexing and storing the data, thedistributed information discovery platform may be used to determinewhich queries should be sent to such databases and direct these queriesto the appropriate database provider(s). The database provider's ownsearch capabilities may be employed to respond to the query through thedistributed information discovery platform. Thus, the resulting searchresults may be more up-to-date and have wider coverage than a set ofconventional crawler search engine results.

[0046] The ability to search recently updated information may make thedistributed information discovery platform better suited for “deepsearch” than existing crawler-based search engines. The distributedinformation discovery platform may leverage remote access or publicsearch capabilities provided by information providers. Furthermore,under the distributed information discovery platform, a provider thatwishes to restrict remote access may still allow searching and controlhow content is searched by registering with a distributed informationdiscovery network. The distributed information discovery platform mayspecify a common query routing protocol which may give both parties moreflexibility and control of the exchange of data, which may improvesearch efficiency in some embodiments.

[0047] Application No. 60/308,932 entitled “TRUST MECHANISM FOR APEER-TO-PEER NETWORK COMPUTING PLATFORM” by William J. Yeager and RitaY. Chen is hereby incorporated by reference.

[0048]FIG. 1 illustrates a network that utilizes the distributedinformation discovery platform according to one embodiment. Thedistributed information discovery platform may be applied to create adistributed information discovery network having three main types ofparticipants: providers 120, consumers 140, and hubs 100. In manyapplications, a program or node may act as both provider 120 andconsumer 140. A network may encompass a cloud of machines. Physically, aprovider 120 or a consumer 140 may be, for example, an individualcomputer, set of computers, computing process, or a web service. In oneembodiment, providers 120 and consumer 140 may be any peer within anetwork, including peer-to-peer platform peers running a distributedinformation discovery platform or HTTP peers adapted to a query routingprotocol. A hub may be implemented on one or more machines or processes,and a program acting as a provider or a consumer may also function as ahub. The term “computer” is not limited to any specific type of machineand may include mainframes, servers, desktop computers, laptopcomputers, hand-held devices, PDAs, telephone or mobile phones, pagers,set-top boxes, or any other type of processing or computing device.

[0049] Consumers 140 may query the distributed information discoverynetwork and receive responses from providers 120. A consumer 140 may bedefined as anything that makes requests in the network. A consumer 140may be, for example, a peer in a peer-to-peer network or a web site withan HTTP client interface to the network. In one embodiment, the querymay be sent to a hub 100 nearest to the consumer 140, which routes thequery to all interested providers 120. “Nearest” in this sense does notnecessarily imply geographical nearness, but instead refers to a hub 100that is at the fewest “jumps” (shortest route) to the consumer 140 onthe network. In one embodiment, the distributed information discoveryplatform may include information, for example its location in thenetwork, regarding a hub with which a consumer should communicate in thedistributed information discovery network.

[0050] A network routing system, referred to as a hub 100, may handlequery and response routing in the network. A hub 100 may act as anaccess point that may provide virtual access to a portion of or theentire distributed information discovery network. Providers 120 andconsumers 140 may contact the network through a specific hub 100implemented on one or more machines. In some embodiments, providers 120and consumers 140 may contact different hubs 100. Hubs 100 mayfacilitate efficient query routing over the network by handling messagerouting between consumers 140 and providers 120. In one embodiment, ahub 100 may include a router 104 that handles the routing of queries toproviders 120. In one embodiment a hub 100 may include a router 104 thathandles the routing of responses to consumers 140. The hub 100 maydetermine one or more providers 120 of which the hub 100 is aware (e.g.that have registered with the hub 100) and that may be qualified toprocess a received query. In one embodiment, a hub 100 may include aresolver 102 which may handle the determination of qualified providers120.

[0051] In some embodiments, queries may be resolved by a resolver 102 inthe network by matching query terms to registration terms. In someembodiments, the resolver 102 may use simple keyword based matching ofquery terms to registrations. In other embodiments, the resolver may beextended, for example, to allow for category based matching of terms toregistrations and/or adaptive learning of provider performance, e.g.learning which providers return relevant results given certain kinds ofqueries. Providers 120 whose registration terms match the query termsmay be returned by the resolver 102. The hub 100 may include metadataassociated with the providers 120, including the provider descriptionsregistered with the hub 100. This metadata may be used to determine thequalified provider(s) 120. The hub 100 then may send the query to theprovider(s) 120 it has determined to be qualified. Each provider 120that receives the query may process the received query and send one ormore responses to the hub 100. The hub 100 may receive the responses androute them to the consumer 140 that initiated the query.

[0052] A provider 120 may be defined as anything that responds torequests (queries) in the network. A provider 120 may be, for example, apeer in a peer-to-peer network or a Web server such as cnn.com. Thedistributed information discovery platform allows information providers120 to publish a description of queries that they are willing to answer.In one embodiment, each provider 120 may register a description ofitself on the distributed information discovery network. In oneembodiment each provider 120 then waits for requests matchinginformation in the description. In one embodiment, providers 120 mayregister by sending registration information to the hub 100. Theregistration information may include metadata describing the types ofqueries that a provider 120 may be able to respond to. In oneembodiment, the registration information may be maintained in aregistration repository that may include registration information for aplurality of providers 120. In one embodiment the hub 100 has access tothe registration repository.

[0053] In one embodiment provider registrations may be meta-dataindexes. Registration information for a provider 120 may includequeryspaces that define which queries the provider 120 may respond to.The registration, in one embodiment, may include an XML-based encodingof a logical statement characterized by a queryspace, optionallycharacterized by a schema. In one embodiment, if no schema is specifieda default schema for general keyword matching may be used. For example,a user may send a search query to a distributed information discoveryrouting system. The query may be compared to the registrations (e.g.meta-data indexes). In one embodiment, the registrations may be storedin XML format describing a conjunctive-normal logic. Queries are thenrouted to providers matching the query.

[0054] In some embodiments, users and end applications (consumers 140)may present queries to a distributed information discovery network asarbitrary XML. Schema selection may be performed by HTTP headerspecification, in some embodiments. In one embodiment, queries presentedby consumers 140 may adhere to specific queryspaces. In someembodiments, queries may be routed to the appropriate provider 120 bysending requests (e.g. XML requests) over HTTP. A router 104 may sendthe requests and await responses. In some embodiments, the router 104may continually monitor providers to determine availability andreliability. Providers 120 may respond to queries in, e.g., arbitraryXML that may include links to any results they have in their site.

[0055] In some embodiments matches, results and their ordering may bedetermined according to relevance. The relevance may be specified by theuser or alternatively may be a pre-defined relevance. In someembodiments the distributed information discovery network may performsome tailoring of the responses to search queries, for example byenabling providers to select the information to send in response tosearch queries or by ranking the results based on information from anyof the providers. In one embodiment, the distributed informationdiscovery network may not perform any presentation of the responses fromproviders 120. In this embodiment, the consumer may include a front endto perform such presentation, e.g. either as a web page or as a clientside user interface. In one embodiment, the distributed informationdiscovery network may collate results from providers 120, performranking on the results with respect to the query and present them inHTML, for example. Thus, a general application or user (consumer 120)may be able to query a distributed information discovery network and acton the responses as it sees fit. For example a music file sharingapplication may receive results and sort them according to filesize/connection rate. In some embodiments, the links are provided to theinformation matching the queries.

[0056] In addition to functioning as a “meta-search” engine, thedistributed information discovery platform may include support for anopen protocol for distributed information routing. This protocol fordistributed information routing may be referred to as a query routingprotocol (or QRP). The query routing protocol may be used in definingqueries, responses and registrations. The query routing protocol mayallow both structured, lightweight and efficient query message exchange.In one embodiment, the query routing protocol may be implemented in XML.The query routing protocol may define mechanisms for sending andresponding to queries in the network, in addition to mechanisms fordefining metadata for nodes in the network. In one embodiment, thisquery routing protocol allows information providers to publish adescription of queries that they are willing to answer. Informationconsumers may submit queries to the network, which routes each query toall interested providers. The query routing protocol may allowparticipants in the network to exchange information in a seamless mannerwithout having to understand the structure of the presentation layers.Embodiments of the query routing protocol may be based on existing openstandards, including markup languages such as XML (eXtensible Mark-upLanguage) and XML Schema. In addition, the query routing protocol may beencapsulated within existing protocols, such as HTTP (HyperText TransferProtocol).

[0057] In some embodiments, the query routing protocol of thedistributed information discovery platform may provide an interfacedesigned for simplicity. For example, a minimally-conforming clientimplementation may be built in one embodiment using existing librariesfor manipulating XML and sending HTTP messages. A minimally-conformingserver implementation may be built in one embodiment with the abovetools plus a generic HTTP server.

[0058] The query routing protocol of the distributed informationdiscovery platform may provide structure. For example, in oneembodiment, queries on a distributed information discovery network maybe made using XML messages conforming to a particular schema orqueryspace. Since providers may have widely differing kinds of contentor resources in their datastores, the query routing protocol may be usedto define queryspaces that may be used to define the structure ofqueries and the associated registration information for a provider 120.In one embodiment, queryspaces may define the structure of a valid querythat a provider 120 can process. In one embodiment, queryspaces may beimplemented in XML. In such an embodiment, information providers mayregister templates describing the structure of queries to which they arewilling to respond.

[0059] The query routing protocol of the distributed informationdiscovery platform may provide extensibility. In some embodiments,arbitrary schemas or queryspaces may be used on a distributedinformation discovery network. In such embodiments, there may be no needfor centralized schema or queryspace management. Thus, ad hoccollaboration may be simplified.

[0060] The query routing protocol of the distributed informationdiscovery platform may provide scalability. For example, in oneembodiment, a distributed information discovery network may supportmillions of publishers and consumers performing billions of transactionsper day. In some embodiments, sophisticated implementations may takeadvantage of advanced connection-management features provided bylower-level protocols (e.g. HTTP/1.1).

[0061] The following describes one embodiment of a query routingprotocol that may be used in embodiments of the distributed informationdiscovery platform. In this embodiment, the query routing protocol mayinclude several components. One component may be a query request.Another component may be a query response. A component may be aregistration.

[0062] Registrations may be structured to delineate the differentinformation included by a provider in that message. For example, aregistration body may be enveloped within the <register> and </register>tags. A query server, i.e. the URL or Pipe ID of the provider to sendthe queries to is specified within <query-server> and </query-server>. A“predicate”, i.e. the logical statement which the queries must match tobe routed to this provider is enveloped within tags <predicate> and</predicate>. A predicate may include the queries that will be matchedby this provider, each enveloped within <query> and </query> tags. Eachpredicate may contain multiple <query> envelopes. A query body maycontain arbitrary XML as long as it matches the namespace that matchesthe specified query-space for this provider. For example, query bodiescontaining the terms “html”, “java” or “xml” would be routed to provider“http://abcd.com/” which may have registered those terms whenregistering as a provider as follows: <?xml version=‘1.0’?> <registerxmlns=“http://abcd.com”     query-server=http://abcd.com/search>    <predicate>         <query><text>html java xml</text></query>    </predicate> </register>

[0063] An example registration for abcd.com may look like this: <?xmlversion=‘1.0’?> <register xmlns=“http://abcd.com”    xmlns:b=”http://bigbookseller.com/search”    query-space=”http://bigbookseller.com/search”>    <query-server>http://abcd.com/search</query-server>     <predicate>        <query>         <b:author>John Doe Jane Doe</b:author>        <b:title>Foos Gadgets Widgets</b:title>      </query>    </predicate> </register>

[0064] Query messages may be structured to indicate which portions arequeries and which include other information. For example, a defaultnamespace may be specified by a URI such as “http://abcd.org/search”. Aquery message may be contained within the envelope <request> . . .</request>. A query unique ID may be specified in a uuid attribute ofthe <request> tag. A query space may be specified within the tags<query-space> and </query-space>. An actual query data may be envelopedwithin the tags <query> and </query>. Query data may be arbitrary XMLwithin a namespace that matches “http://abcd.org/search/text”, whichincludes the tag <text> to specify free text, or within any othernamespace specified by the <query-space> definition. Generally anyenvelop or structure may be used provided it adequately identifiesinformation needed to define query information between members of thesearch network. In one embodiment, each query request message includesthe <request uuid=“uuid details”>, <query-space>, and <query> tags. Inone embodiment, although <query-space> defines a name for the type ofquery that is being performed, a name space may be used with the samevalue as that specified in <query-space> for all the queryspace-specifictags. One embodiment may use a full XML schema framework for definingand validating queryspaces.

[0065] Response messages may be structured to indicate which portionsare responses and which include other information. For example, adefault name space may be “http://abcd.com/search”. A response messagemay be enveloped within the <response> and </response> tags. A body ofthe response may be arbitrary XML as long as it corresponds to thespecified queryspace and corresponding namespace, e.g. the queryspace“http://abcd.com/search” includes the <text> tag. Generally any envelopor structure may be used provided it adequately identifies informationneeded to define response information between members of the searchnetwork.

[0066] The following is an example of the format of a query for the term“foo”: <?xml version=‘1.0’?> <request xmlns=”http://abcd.com/search”     xmlns:t=”http://abcd.com/search/text”     uuid=”1C8DAC3036A811D584AEC2C23”>     <query><t:text>fOO</t:text></query> </request>

[0067] The following is an example of a response to this query: <?xmlversion=‘1.0’?> <response xmlns=”http://abcd.com/search”>      <text>Hi,I'm a peer-to-peer platform peer</text> </response>

[0068] A more complex example may be: <?xml version=‘1.0’?> <requestid=”1C8DAC3036A811D584AEC2C23”     query-space=”http://bigbookseller.com/js”     xmlns=”http://abcd.com/search”     xmlns:books=”http://bigbookseller.com/search”>      <query>           <b:author>John Doe</b:author>           <b:title>Widgets</b:title>      </query> </request>

[0069] In this example the query space is defined as“http://bigbookseller.com/search” and the namespace “books” matches theURI for this query space. The query specifies that the “author” withinthe name space “books” should be “John” or “Doe” or that the titleshould contain “Widgets”.

[0070] An example of a response by abcd.com may be: <?xmlversion=‘1.0’?> <response xmlns=”http://abcd.com/search”     xmlns:b=”http://bigbookseller.com/search”     query-space=”http://bigbookseller.com/search”>      <b:authors>JohnDoe, Jane Doe</b:authors>      <b:URL>        http://www.abcd.com/obidos/ASIN/0201310082      </b:URL>     <b:title>Foos, Gadgets and Widgets</b:title>     <b:price>$39.95</b:price>      <b:abstract>         A definitivetechnical reference for foos, gadgets and         widgets, written bythe inventors of the technologies.      </b:abstract> </response>

[0071] In addition, request messages may contain optional attributes.These may be contained inside request tags. If unspecified, defaultsattributes may be assumed. Optional attributes may include:“max-hits-per-provider” indicating a number of hits expected from aprovider; “flushafter” to indicate to flush the output stream to theclient after receiving responses from a certain number of providers;“queryuuid” to indicate a unique id of the query; “querylifetime” toindicate a length of time during which the query is valid; or“maxfanout” to indicate a maximum number of providers to which toforward the query. For example, a tag may be: <request flushafter=5providerhits=2 timeout=2>.

[0072] An architecture for the distributed information discoveryplatform is shown in FIG. 2, according to one embodiment. In oneembodiment, a consumer 140 may provide users an access point to adistributed information discovery network. A consumer such as consumer140A may include a consumer query request protocol interface 142. A QRPinterface may be a stand alone application, a component of a distributedinformation discovery platform, a script capable of parsing requests andgenerating an appropriately formatted response, or any hardware orsoftware configured to include at least functionality for translating toor from query response protocol data. The consumer QRP interface 142 maysend queries written in the query request protocol to the hub 100 forquery resolution and routing. After sending a query, the consumer QRPinterface 142 may await responses from providers. In one embodiment, thequeries may be received by a hub consumer QRP interface 108 of router104. In one embodiment, the consumer QRP interface 142 may also performformatting of the responses for presentation to the end user orapplication, which may include ordering or otherwise organizing theresponses. In one embodiment, the formatting or ordering of theresponses may be in response to instructions received from the consumeror provider. In one embodiment, consumers 140 may also include a frontend or user interface (e.g. a web user interface) to the hub (e.g. therouter and/or resolver). In one embodiment, a consumer 140 may include amechanism for ranking and presentation of query results. In oneembodiment, this mechanism may be a component of the consumer QRPinterface 142. Ranking methodology may be implicit in each queryspace,and may be returned as part of each response in some embodiments. Someranking schemes may require third-party involvement.

[0073] In one embodiment, consumers such as consumer 140C may notinclude a consumer QRP interface 142. These consumers may use a consumerproxy 110 to interface to the functionality of the hub 100. The consumerproxy 110 may perform translation of queries formatted in one or morequery protocols supported by the consumers 140 into queries in the queryrouting protocol. These queries may then be sent to the hub 100 forresolution and routing. In one embodiment, the queries may be receivedby a hub consumer QRP interface 108 of router 104. The consumer proxy110 may also perform translation of query responses formatted in thequery routing protocol into one or more protocols supported by theconsumers 140. As shown, one or more consumers 140 may interface withthe consumer proxy 110.

[0074] In one embodiment, a provider such as provider 120A may include aprovider query request protocol (QRP) interface 122 that may acceptqueries from the hub 100 in the query routing protocol and respond tothe queries with query responses in the query routing protocol. Theprovider QRP interface 122 may perform translation of queries intoprovider-specific requests. In one embodiment the QRP interface 122 mayinclude an indexing and/or searching interface and may be configured toperform indexing and searching itself. In one embodiment, the providerQRP interface 122 may not perform any indexing or searching itself, butrather may call the appropriate indexing and/or searching interface ofthe provider 120, for example, a database search engine. In thisembodiment, the provider QRP interface 122 may, if necessary, translatethe queries from the query request protocol into a protocol that may beused by the appropriate indexing and/or searching interface of theprovider 120. The provider QRP interface 122 may also, if necessary,translate the query responses from the protocol used by the appropriateindexing and/or searching interface of the provider 120 into the queryrequest protocol. A provider QRP interface 122 may be, for example, asmall modification of an existing search engine script (Java Server Page(JSP), Perl etc.) so that queries from a distributed informationdiscovery network can be applied to the provider's search engine.

[0075] Provider proxy 114 may perform translation of queries formattedaccording to the query routing protocol to specific search engineformats for a provider 120 such as provider 120C. Provider proxy 114 mayalso perform translation of responses formatted according to thespecific search engine formats into responses formatted according to thequery routing protocol. A provider proxy 114 may be used, for example,if a provider 120 does not run its own provider QRP interface 122B butdoes allow access to its own search engine.

[0076] Hub 100 performs the routing of queries from consumers 140 toproviders 120. The hub 100 accepts queries, resolves those queries tothe appropriate providers 120 and then manages the routing of thequeries to the providers 120. The hub 100 then may collate the resultsreceived from one or more providers 120 and send the results back to therequesting consumer 140 in a query response.

[0077] In one embodiment, rather than sending the results back to theconsumer 140 in a query response, the results may be provided to theclient by other means. For example, the query message may include anemail address or addresses to receive the results. After receiving andcollating the results, the hub 100 may email the results to the emailaddress(es) specified in the query message. In one embodiment, the hub100 may also receive queries in email messages from consumers. Asanother example, the hub 100 may post the results to a URL specified inthe query message. Alternatively, the provider 120 may provide theresults directly to the consumer 120 rather than routing the resultsthrough the hub 100. The query message may include information thatallows the provider 120 to provide the results directly to the consumer120. For example, the query message may include an email address and/ora URL for the consumer 140, and the provider 120 may email the resultsto the specified email address or send the results directly to the URLspecified in the query message.

[0078] A hub 100 may comprise a router 104 that may provide a portion ofthe functionality of the hub 100. The router 104 may route queries toproviders 120, manage query connections, collate results and returnresponses to consumers 140. A hub may also comprise a resolver 102 thatmatches queries to providers 120. Provider information 106 may includeone or more registration files comprising metadata specified by theproviders 120 during registration.

[0079] In one embodiment, the resolver 102 may be based on a full textsearch engine. For example, the core components may be adapted from theLucene search engine (http://www.lucene.com) written using Java. In oneembodiment, the resolver 102 may index all tags and text in theregistration files. A reverse index may be created which maps queryterms to providers. For efficiency, the resolver may create separateindices for each queryspace.

[0080] In one embodiment, a provider 120 may accept queries in the queryrouting protocol directly from consumers 140 without the queries beingrouted by the hub 100. In one embodiment, a provider 120 may also returnresponses to queries directly to consumers 140 without routing theresponses through the hub 100.

[0081] In one embodiment, a distributed information discovery system maybe implemented as a series of distinct web services. Each of the router,resolver, proxies, and QRP interfaces may run independently. In oneembodiment, these web services may be implemented as Java Servletclasses referencing additional Java classes for core functions. Forexample, in a web embodiment, each of the router, resolver, proxies, andQRP interfaces may be implemented on a web-accessible server or servers.Also, a distributed information discovery network may include multipledifferent routers, resolvers, proxies, and QRP interfaces. One router orresolver may register with another router or resolver. Or onedistributed information discovery system implementing a router,resolver, proxies, and/or QRP interfaces may register with another suchsystem. For example, a distributed information discovery routing systemmay register providers of information concerning outdoor recreation.Another distributed information discovery routing system having providerregistrations for boating may register with the first system. In someembodiments, a distributed information discovery system may beimplemented on different peers in a peer-to-peer network, or othernetworks.

[0082] In one embodiment, a database used by any of the above componentsmay be a database that provides persistency, such as a GOODS (GenericObject Oriented Database System) database. GOODS is an object-orientedfully distributed database management system (DBMS) using an activeclient model. Other databases based on other DBMSs may also be used.

[0083] Using the proxies and QRP interfaces described above, thedistributed information discovery platform may offer a unique technologyby enabling search across heterogeneous communication protocols andsystems and presenting those results using any other protocol andsystem. An example of this is the distributed information discoveryplatform's ability to search Java Server Page (JSP) based HTTP systemssimultaneously with Perl-based XML systems and Java-based peer-to-peerprotocol systems. The distributed information discovery platform mayalso provide a mechanism for presenting those results in HTTP-basedHTML, a peer-to-peer protocol, or any other protocol/medium combination.

[0084] The consumer and provider proxies and QRP interfaces may serve asadaptors for multiple data sources to plug into a standardized interfacefor distributed deep search. In one embodiment, the distributedinformation discovery platform is an XML-based request/response system.By using an XML-based messaging format, the distributed informationdiscovery platform may enable powerful and easily implemented deep websearches. Participants in the distributed information discovery platformnetwork need only apply fairly common and available facilities to adapttheir system as a network provider. The XML nature of the responsemessages additionally expands the scope of a provider's ability.Applications other than web browsers may manipulate the responses fordifferent purposes such as determining an average price or a currentdemand based upon availability.

[0085] To be a network provider, participants may include a provider QRPinterface 122 that may be tailored for a provider's specific system. Aprovider QRP interface 122 may parse or translate a query routingprotocol request from the distributed information discovery network,query a provider back end 180 to get appropriate data 182, and thengenerate a response and send it back to the distributed informationdiscovery network according to the query routing protocol. In oneembodiment a QRP interface may determine whether a query is recognizablyformatted, contains an illegal query or result, would access restrictedinformation, or otherwise cannot validly be processed, and may return anerror message or code or similar indication. In one embodiment, thedistributed information discovery platform may provide one or moregeneric QRP interfaces that may be used as examples that illustrate howto use a specific language to accept requests and/or generate responses.The distributed information discovery platform may also provide one ormore QRP interfaces that plug into existing, freely available systems.

[0086] In one embodiment, queryspaces may be defined within thedistributed information discovery platform that enable providers 120 todo more than return links to web pages. For example, rather thanquerying a database, a QRP interface 122 may compute a price for aparticular service based on demand in real time. The QRP interface 122may generate data, or may cause another application to generate data ondemand. An example may be an auction system for spare CPU cycles, wherea client would query various providers 120 for CPU time. The providers120 may generate a price based on current availability. In oneembodiment, the distributed information discovery platform may include aresult presentation mechanism that may perform computations on and/orpresentation formatting of results data.

[0087] There may be some differences in some of the internal mechanismsof embodiments that bind to different networks. In general, the queryrouting protocol and the resolution mechanism may be the same or similarin the different embodiments. The routing mechanism and the clientinterfaces in the different embodiments, however, may be implemented atleast partially differently to support the different network types.

[0088]FIG. 3 illustrates message flow in a distributed informationdiscovery network according to one embodiment. An application onconsumer 140 may find information providers 120 to respond to aparticular query by sending the query into the network via a specificaccess point (hub 100). In one embodiment, consumer 140 may send thequery to router 104 of hub 100. Router 104 may then send the query toresolver 102. In one embodiment, queries may conform to the queryrouting protocol. In one embodiment, queries are markup language (e.g.XML) messages with essentially arbitrary structure. In this embodiment,there are no restrictions on what tags may be used in queries.

[0089] Resolver 102 may determine one or more providers 120 which mayreceive the query. One or more information providers 120 may havepreviously registered with hub 100 by sending registration messages eachincluding one or more queryspaces for the particular provider 120. Inone embodiment, information from the registration messages, includingqueryspace information, may be maintained in provider information 106.Provider information 106 may be a file or database of files includingregistration information for one or more providers 120. Resolver 102 mayindex and search provider information 106 for queryspaces that match thequery. For a provider 120 to be selected to receive the query, thequeryspace specified in the query must match a queryspace of theprovider 120. Also, the path predicate specified in the registrationmessage must select a non-empty set of nodes in the query.

[0090] After determining the one or more providers 120 to receive thequery, resolver 102 may provide a list of the selected one or moreproviders 120 to router 104. Router 104 may then send the query to eachof the selected one or more providers 120. Once an information provider120 receives the query, it composes a response and sends it back to therouter 104 of hub 100. Hub 100 may receive one or more responses fromeach provider 120 that was sent the query. Router 104 may then forwardthe received responses to the consumer 140, and thus to the queryingapplication. In one embodiment, the hub 100 does not evaluate competingrelevance rankings. In one embodiment that task is left to the queryingapplication.

[0091] In one embodiment, the hub 100 may collate the responses receivedfrom one or more providers 120 prior to sending them to the consumer140. In this embodiment, consumers 120 are not required to listen forasynchronous responses. Collation may also provide security benefits.For example, collating responses may help prevent distributeddenial-of-service attacks based on spoofed queries. Also, thedistributed information discovery network may be used to establishpeer-to-peer connections.

[0092] In one embodiment, the consumer 140 may connect to the resolver102 initially to request a set of providers 120 to be targets of aquery, and then sends this list of providers 120 to the router 104,which manages the query routing from the consumer 140 to the providers120, and which also returns the results to the consumer 140 (i.e.Consumer-> Resolver-> Consumer-> Router-> Providers-> Router->Consumer).

[0093]FIG. 4 illustrates a provider 120 with provider QRP interface 122interfacing to a provider search engine backend 180 according to oneembodiment. In one embodiment, a provider QRP interface 122 may serve asan adaptor to the query routing protocol. In one embodiment using acommon protocol based on a technology such as XML, fairly common andavailable facilities may be used to create a provider QRP interface 122to serve as an adaptor between a provider backend and the distributedinformation discovery network.

[0094] Thus, to be a network provider, participants may include aprovider QRP interface 122. A provider QRP interface 122 may be tailoredfor a provider's specific system. A provider QRP interface 122 may parseor translate a query routing protocol request from the distributedinformation discovery network, query a provider back end 180 to getappropriate data 182, and then generate a response and send it back tothe distributed information discovery network according to the queryrouting protocol. A provider QRP interface 122 may be a stand-aloneapplication or alternatively a script capable of parsing the requests,gathering data and generating an appropriately formatted response.

[0095] In one embodiment, providers or back-end systems may sendresponse messages to the provider QRP interface 122 using the Rich SiteSummary (RSS) protocol as a default protocol. RSS is an XML protocoldesigned for site summaries. Using RSS may provide a common formattingstandard of the responses, removing the need to handle custom HTML orother custom protocols being returned from providers. In one embodiment,provider proxies are configured to use RSS.

[0096] In one embodiment, QRP interfaces may support queries wrapped asXML-RPC (XML Remote Procedure Call (RPC)) requests. XML-RPC is aprotocol (which forms the basis of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP))for invoking server side methods over XML. In other embodiments, QRPinterfaces also support HTML or other formats for data transmission ordata gathering.

[0097]FIG. 5 illustrates a provider 120 with provider QRP interface 122interfacing to a provider search engine backend 180 according to oneembodiment. In this embodiment, a result presentation mechanism 190 isshown that may enable providers 120 to do more than return links to webpages. For example, result presentation mechanism 190 may take thesearch results in the response message from search engine 180 and tailorthe results into a presentation format such as a markup languagedocument. This markup language document may be sent to the provider QRPinterface 122, which may package the document in a QRP response and sendit to the consumer 140. In one embodiment, QRP interface 122 includesresult presentation mechanism 190. As another example, a resultpresentation mechanism 190 may compute a price for a particular servicebased on demand in real time. As an example, in an auction system forspare CPU cycles, a consumer 140 may query various providers 120 for CPUtime. The providers 120 may generate a price based on currentavailability.

[0098] The distributed information discovery platform may be used foraugmenting standard search engines that index statically available webpages. Standard web pages are useful mainly for web browsers. Otherdevices, such as wireless communications devices, may benefit fromsearches that expose relevant data. The distributed informationdiscovery platform may provide the ability to collect queries andprovide results with meaningful relevance to a wide variety ofinformation consumers and producers. The distributed informationdiscovery system may use a dynamic data collection methodology that isindependent of an information provider's presence on the World Wide Web,for example. An information provider may use a provider QRP interface122 to function as an adapter and handle incoming queries, provide aregistration that defines which services and information are availablefor what devices (e.g. cell phones, PDAs, etc.), and use a resultpresentation mechanism 190 to tailor results for presentation on theparticular devices. For example, a cell phone may be used to find openservice stations and compare prices, or restaurants to compare menus. Aconsumer QRP interface may be integrated in the cell phone, or may beaccessible from the cell phone device to handle queries and responses,tailoring results for presentation on the cell phone. The consumer QRPinterface may also similarly be integrated in other mobile or portabledevices, and computers generally.

[0099] For providers 140 that do not run an adapter for the distributedinformation discovery platform, a hub 100 may run a provider proxy 114as illustrated in FIG. 2. A provider proxy 114 may perform translationof queries formatted according to the query routing protocol to specificsearch engine formats for a provider 120. Provider proxy 114 may alsoperform translation of responses formatted according to the specificsearch engine formats into responses formatted according to the queryrouting protocol. In one embodiment, the provider proxy 114 may performoff-line spidering and indexing of the providers 140 and respond toqueries as a standard search engine would (this could be considered anopen search indexing service). In another embodiment, the provider proxy114 may perform translation of queries formatted according to the queryrouting protocol to specific search engine formats for a provider 120,and may also perform translation of responses formatted according to thespecific search engine formats into responses formatted according to thequery routing protocol.

[0100]FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary distributed information discoverynetwork including a plurality of hubs 100 according to one embodiment.Each hub 100 may support one or more providers 120 and/or consumers 140which may use the hub 100 as an access point to the distributedinformation discovery network. As shown in node 180, a node on thenetwork may include instances of both a consumer 140 and a provider 120.In one embodiment, the distributed information discovery platform maysupport nodes comprising one or more consumers 140, one or moreproviders 140, and/or one or more hubs 100.

[0101] In one embodiment, the distributed information discovery networkmay include one or more hubs 100 that each may support a particular typeof application or specialist domain. For example, a web site might run ahub 100 as a vertical aggregator of content pertaining to Javaprogramming. Its providers 120 may include other sites with contentfocused on Java. However, the web site may also send queries out to adifferent hub 100 running on a more general technology news site whoseproviders 120 may include sites such as CNet or Slashdot, for example.As another example, in a peer-to-peer network, hubs 100 may be used togroup together peers with similar content, geography or queryspaces.Each peer within the network may interact with the hubs 100 using itsappropriate service(s) (e.g. provider, consumer, and/or registrationservices).

[0102]FIG. 7 illustrates provider registration in a distributedinformation discovery network according to one embodiment. Informationproviders 120 may register themselves within a distributed informationdiscovery network. To register, a provider 120 may contact a hub 100with a registration message. The registration message may conform to thequery routing protocol (QRP). In one embodiment, a provider 120A mayinclude a provider QRP registration interface 124 that is operable tosend a registration message to the hub 100. In one embodiment, hub 100may include a QRP registration interface 112 that may be configured toreceive registration messages from providers 120. Provider QRPregistration interface 124 may also maintain a registration file for theprovider 120A. In one embodiment, the distributed information discoveryplatform may include a registration service 160 that may provide a QRPregistration interface to hub 100 for providers 120 that do not includea provider QRP registration interface 124.

[0103] Providers 120 may specify the type of queries they wish toreceive in a registration file that may be provided to a hub 100 atprovider registration. In one embodiment, a registration file may be anXML document comprising metadata about the information that the provider120 wishes to expose. This file may encode the type and structure ofqueries, queryspaces and response formats compatible with provider 120.A QRP interface may use the type and structure information in the fileto encode queries, queryspaces and responses in formats compatible withprovider 120.

[0104] The registration file can be thought of as an advertisement ofthe provider's metadata and its structure. The registration file mayinclude information specifying one or more of several items. Forexample, a provider's query server endpoint may be included. If this isa peer-to-peer network implemented using the peer-to-peer platformdescribed herein, the endpoint may be a pipe identifier oradvertisement. In the web domain, this may be a CGI script which iscapable of processing the query request protocol request messages andresponding with a query request protocol response. In other embodiments,the endpoint may be a URL. Queries which match one of the provider'spredicates may be posted to this endpoint. The file may include aqueryspace of the queries this provider will accept. In one embodiment,this may be specified as a queryspace URI (e.g. URL). When queries areposted to this queryspace, the query may be checked against theprovider's predicates for matches. The file may include a responseformat that the provider is capable of responding in. The responseformat may be specified as a URI to an XML schema. The file also mayinclude a structure and content of the queries the provider isinterested in receiving, specified in predicate form. In one embodiment,a set of predicates may define the structure and content

[0105] In one embodiment, a registration message may include thefollowing tags: <register>...</register> - tags identifying this as aregistration document <predicate>...</predicate> - tags enveloping apredicate

[0106] The following is an example registration document according toone embodiment: <register>    <queryspace>http://www.abcd.com/opensearch</queryspace>    <query-server>http://www.efgh.com/search.jsp</query-server>    <predicate>baba ghannouj ghannoush ganoush</predicate> </register>

[0107] This example registers a provider 120 with a queryspace. It alsoregisters one predicate that will direct any query containing any of thewords “baba”, “ghannouj”, “ghannoush” or “ganoush” to the provider'squery server running at http://www.efgh.com/searchjsp. This matches anyquery containing the particular keywords.

[0108] As another example, consider the following registration: <?xmlversion=‘1.0’?> <register xmlns=”http://abcd.org/search”    xmlns:b=”http://bigbookseller.com/search”    query-space=”http://bigbookseller.com/search”    query-server=http://littlebookseller.com/exec/search>    <predicate>           <query>                 <b:author>                    John Doe  Jane Doe                 </b:author>                <b: title>                     Foobar Gadgets Widgets                </b:title>           </query>    </predicate></register>

[0109] This registers a provider 120 with the text queryspace, specifiedby http://bigbookseller.com/search. This registration registers theprovider for the following queries: any query containing “John Doe” or“Jane Doe” in the <author> field and any query containing “Foobar”,“Gadgets”, or “Widgets” in the <title> field.

[0110] Queries matching these conditions may be directed to the queryserver running at http://littlebookseller.com/exec/search. Predicatesmay be much larger than this exemplary predicate, and may also containmore complex structure.

[0111] In some embodiments, if the provider 120 does not specify aqueryspace, a default queryspace may be registered for the provider 120.In such an embodiment, queries failing to indicate a queryspace may beassumed to be of the default queryspace.

[0112] In one embodiment, a provider may be registered using a userinterface in which keywords may be typed or pasted. In one embodiment,the user interface may be a Web page. In one embodiment, providers maybe able to choose from a list of categories in addition to choosingkeywords for their registrations. These categories may reflect thecontents of open directories such as dmoz.org and some common newssources (e.g. CNN). For example, the top level of dmoz may be used as apull down list or menu of categories from which providers may choose. Inone embodiment, further specialization in categories may beprovided—e.g. for News, providers may choose News-> Tech News. In oneembodiment, a recursive menu system may be used—e.g. a provider picksNews, then presses submit, then picks Tech News and so on. The categorydata may be updated as needed—e.g. daily for news, weekly for othercategories.

[0113] In one embodiment, providers may edit their registrationinformation via a user interface (e.g. web page) or a web form, oralternatively submit a replacement/addition to their registration. Inone embodiment a QRP adapter may monitor or log queries, results, numberof hits, searches, results, etc. or generally the information passingthrough the QRP adapter. In one embodiment, a user interface may beprovided through which providers may view the results of searches andhits performed by consumers—e.g. how many searches resulted in theirentry being returned, how many users clicked through, etc. In oneembodiment, a user interface may be provided through which providers maymonitor and/or control the number of queries sent to them and also tothrottle traffic (e.g. turn it off) if necessary. In some embodiments, aQRP interface may be able to access a registration file, for example toread at least part of the registration document or to write to replaceor to add to at least part of the registration document.

[0114] An embodiment may include a site analysis tool that may be usedfor building registrations for sites that do not know how to or that donot desire to build their own registration. The site analysis tool maybe available as an option during registration (for example, “build me aregistration file” with a turn around of 24 hours or so), and may allowthe provider to enter one or more initial keyword starting points. Thesite analysis may produce a queryspace from the information availablethrough a site to reflect the kind of query to which the site mayrespond. In one embodiment the site analysis tool is part of a QRPinterface. In one embodiment the QRP interface is a proxy to a provider.The tool site analysis tool may query, crawl, spider, index, orotherwise access or interact with the site to determine the type ofinformation available from the site.

[0115]FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating message flow in a distributedinformation discovery network according to one embodiment. Anapplication on a consumer may find information providers to respond to aparticular query by sending the query into the network via a specifichub. In one embodiment, queries may conform to a query routing protocol.In one embodiment, a consumer QRP interface is configured to producequeries that conform to a query routing protocol. In one embodiment,queries are markup language (e.g. XML) messages with essentiallyarbitrary structure. In this embodiment, there are no restrictions onwhat tags may be used in queries.

[0116] The consumer may send the query to the hub as indicated at 300.In one embodiment, a router on the hub may receive the query. In oneembodiment, a query routing protocol interface of the consumer maytranslate the query from a protocol understood by the consumer to thequery routing protocol before sending the query to the hub. As indicatedat 302, the hub may resolve the query to determine one or more providersthat may want to process the query. In one embodiment, the router maythen send the query to a resolver on the hub to perform the queryresolution. In one embodiment, a provider may be selected to receive thequery if the queryspace specified in the query matches a queryspace ofthe provider and the path predicate specified in the registrationmessage selects a non-empty set of nodes in the query. In oneembodiment, the resolver may index and search provider information forqueryspaces that match the query.

[0117] After determining the one or more providers to receive the query,the hub may route the query to the one or more providers as indicated at304. In one embodiment, the resolver may provide a list of the selectedone or more providers to the router. The router may then send the queryto each of the selected one or more providers. Once a provider receivesthe query, it may search for results in its queryspace that satisfy thequery as indicated at 306. A backend search engine of the provider mayperform the search. In one embodiment, the query may be translated fromthe query routing protocol to a protocol used by the provider by a queryrouting protocol interface of the provider. In one embodiment, aprovider QRP interface or adapter may access a backend search engine ofthe provider to perform the search.

[0118] The provider may compose a response (containing the results ofthe query) and send it back to the hub as indicated at 308. In oneembodiment, the query response may be translated from the protocol usedby the provider to the query routing protocol by a query routingprotocol interface or adapter of the provider before sending theresponse to the hub. In one embodiment, the response may be received onthe hub by the router. The hub may receive one or more responses fromeach provider that was sent the query at 304. As indicated at 310, inone embodiment, the hub may collate the responses received from the oneor more providers prior to sending them to the consumer. The hub may beconfigured to tailor the collated responses, as by arranging them in aparticular order or according to some categories, by chronologicalorder, to indicate relevancy, or some other method that may be useful tothe consumer. The hub may then forward the (possibly collated) responsesto the consumer as indicated at 312, and thus to the queryingapplication. In one embodiment, the router handles the routing of theresponse(s) to the consumer. The consumer may receive the query responseand optionally display the results as indicated at 314. Optionally, theconsumer can do whatever is necessary to the results, including storingthe results, forwarding the results, and modifying the results. In oneembodiment, the query routing protocol interface of the consumer maytranslate the query response from the query routing protocol to aprotocol understood by the consumer after receiving the response fromthe hub. In one embodiment a consumer QRP interface at the hub or aconsumer proxy may translate the query response from the query routingprotocol to the protocol understood by the consumer.

[0119] In one embodiment, instead of, or optionally as well as, sendingthe results to the hub, the provider may send the results directly to alocation specified in the query message. For example, the query messagemay specify a URL that the consumer wishes the results forwarded to ordisplayed at. As another example, the query message may include an emailaddress or addresses that the consumer wants the results emailed to.

[0120] In some embodiments, pre-crawling may be employed to create orupdate a provider registration automatically. For example, a providermay register with a distributed information discovery network. Theprovider may use, or contract a service to use, a tool to build astatistical metadata index from documents retrieved automaticallythrough the provider's web-based interface. The metadata index may thenbe used to provide query routing. In other words, the provider's sitemay be “crawled” to create the registration (e.g. an XML-based metadataindex). Key terms may be selected as the site is crawled to form theregistration index.

[0121] A queryspace is a unique identifier for an abstract space overwhich a query will travel. Queryspaces may be identified by unique URIs.Queryspace URIs may not necessarily reference actual content. QueryspaceURIs are identifiers that providers and consumers may use to find eachother. In one embodiment, both providers and queries may havequeryspaces. A provider's queryspace may be defined as a schema thatdefines the scope of the set of data which the provider is capable ofsearching. A query's queryspace may be defined as a schema that definesthe scope of the set of data which the consumer wishes to search.

[0122] In one embodiment, the distributed information discovery platformmay not make assumptions about the syntax or semantics of queryspaces.In this embodiment, the distributed information discovery platform doesnot process queryspaces, nor does it attempt to validate queries andresponses-queryspaces are purely for coordination between consumers andproviders. In one embodiment, a queryspace may include informationregarding structure, for example so that queryspaces may allow providersand consumers to agree on the structure of messages and by specifyingstructural constraints in a standard form, e.g. a DTD or an XML Schema.In one embodiment, a queryspace may include information regardingsemantics, for example so that providers and consumers may agree on themeaning of the messages that they exchange (in addition to theirstructure). While structural information may be machine-readable,semantic information may be intended for use by in writing client andserver software. In one embodiment, a queryspace may include informationregarding ranking. Queryspaces may define how clients may sort theresults that they receive. Ranking may be application-dependent, andsome applications may not require ranking at all.

[0123] In one embodiment, the distributed information discovery platformmay not specify methods for exchanging queryspace information. Thedistributed information discovery platform may ensure that providersreceive only queries that match their queryspaces. The distributedinformation discovery platform encourages efficiency by allowingproviders to filter the queries that they receive. To filter queries, aprovider may include one or more predicates with each queryspace thatthey register. A predicate statement may be applied to each candidatequery in the given queryspace; only queries that match the predicatestatement may be sent to the provider. Internally, the distributedinformation discovery platform may use the predicates to optimizerouting.

[0124] In one embodiment, each query may contain at least one querysection which may contain arbitrary XML. The contained XML shouldconform to the specified queryspace; otherwise, the query will probablynot match any information provider predicates and will therefore receiveno responses. In some embodiments, the distributed information discoveryplatform may not attempt to validate the query. If multiple querysections are specified, the information provider may choose which queryto respond to. In one embodiment any QRP interface may indicate that aquery cannot be processed, for example if it is an illegal query orotherwise invalid. In one embodiment, a resolver may validate a queryaccording to a registered schema for the queryspace identified in thequery.

[0125] In one embodiment, the query routing protocol does not requirequeries or responses to identify machine addresses. Some queryspaces mayagree to share addresses explicitly (e.g. peer-to-peer file sharing),while other queryspaces may choose to share addresses implicitly (e.g.with embedded XHTML). The structure of both the query and the responsemay be specified (explicitly or implicitly) by the chosen queryspace. Inan example of a full-text schema, the response in the data section maybe mixed-content XHTML to be displayed in a browser. In an example of amusic schema, the data section of a response may contain structuredinformation intended for applications as well as “unstructured” XHTMLintended for humans.

[0126] Some embodiments may use full-text queryspaces. In oneembodiment, a full-text queryspace may use the following DTD: <!DOCTYPEquery [        <!ELEMENT query -- (text?)>        <!ELEMENT text --(#PCDATA)> ]>

[0127] For example, a query for “dog biscuits” under this queryspace maybe formatted as: <query>        <text>dog biscuits</text> </query>

[0128] In one embodiment, a full-text queryspace may be the defaultqueryspace. In some embodiments, a full-text queryspace, such as theabove example, may be extended to support “and” and “or” operations.

[0129] Providers may register query predicates with a distributedinformation discovery network, e.g. by registering with a hub. When aclient submits a query to the network, it is resolved to matchingproviders. For example, a provider may register a registration using thequeryspace specified by the URI“http://www.infrasearch.com/food/recipies”: <register>    <queryspace>http://www.abcd.com/food/recipes</queryspace>    <query-server>http://www.efgh.com/search.jsp</query-server>    <predicate>baba ghannouj ghannoush ganoush</predicate>    <predicate>          <and>               <type>appetizer</type>              <ingredients>eggplant tahini</ingredients>          </and>    </predicate> </register>

[0130] This registration registers the provider with the recipesqueryspace with two predicates. Queries with “appetizer” in their <type>node and either of the words “eggplant” or “tahini” in their<ingredients> node are matched by this registration. A predicate is alsoregistered that will direct any query containing any of the words“baba”, “ghannouj”, “ghannoush” or “ganoush” to the provider's queryserver running at http://www.efgh.com/search.jsp.

[0131] Query Node Patterns (QNPs) may be the basic building block ofquery predicates. Each matches a node of an XML query. QNPs may be XMLfragments. They match a query when they match some subset of thatquery's structure, or, more formally, they may be constructed by aseries of the following transformations: (1) deleting a node in thequery; or (2) replacing the query with a subnode of itself.

[0132] For example, consider the following XML query: <request>     <object type=file>          <format>mp3</format>         <artist>U2 Nirvana</artist>      </object> </request>

[0133] This query is matched by the QNPs as illustrated in Table 1 ofFIG. 9.

[0134] In QNP matching, tag text (a.k.a. character data) may betokenized at whitespace breaks and considered a set of tokens. Someembodiments may be limited to keyword matching only. Other embodimentsmay support phrase matching as well. In some embodiments, matching maybe case-insensitive.

[0135] In some embodiments, a QNP may only contain one path through thequery XML. In such embodiments, the following QNP would be invalid:<object>      <format>mp3</format>      <artist>U2</artist> </object>

[0136] In other embodiments, the single path restriction does not applyand the above QNP would be valid. In single path restricted embodiments,the above QNP would instead be specified as a predicate containing theconjunction of two separate QNPs: <and>      <object>          <format>mp3</format>      </object>      <object>          <artist>U2</artist>      </object> </and>

[0137] Tag text may be an exception to the single path restriction. Insome embodiments, if a QNP node contains multiple text tokens, these mayform an implicit disjunction.

[0138] A query predicate may be a boolean expression composed of QNPs.In some embodiments, predicates must be in conjunctive normal form,i.e., a conjunction of disjunctions. In other embodiments, thisrestriction may not apply.

[0139] As an example of a conjunctive normal form predicate, considerthe following query predicate: <predicate>      <and>           <objecttype=file>           <object><format>mp3</format></object>          <or>                <artist>U2</artist>               <artist>Nirvana</artist>           </or>      </and></predicate>

[0140] Note that the first two conjuncts are implicit disjunctions. Whenan <or > . . . </or >tag contains only a single QNP, the <or > . . .</or > may be dropped. Similarly, if the top-level only has one element,the <and> . . . <and> may also be dropped. Thus, according to oneembodiment, at its simplest, a predicate may be of the form:

[0141] <predicate> U2 Nirvana</predicate>

[0142] This predicate would match any query containing the word “U2” orthe word “Nirvana.”

[0143] As mentioned previously, a resolver may create and maintain a setof indices for the provider registration files, with separate indexesfor each queryspace. When a provider sends a registration file, theresolver parses it into a set of predicates, each predicate having a setof clauses, and each clause having a set of disjunctions. In oneembodiment, predicates may be in conjunctive normal form. Each predicatemay be given a global unique predicate ID, and each clause may be givena local clause ID. For each pattern in the registration, a posting maybe created which contains the predicate ID and the clause ID. Thepredicate ID and clause ID may be used to trace the pattern to theclause in the registration where the pattern occurs. The (pattern,posting) pair may be stored in the corresponding query space index. Theposting may also include a score, which may be updated based on feedbackreceived from the user. The following is an example of a simple XMLfragment of two predicates from a registration and the correspondingindex entries: <predicate> <and> <object type=music><object><format>mp3</format></object> <or> <artist>U2</artist><artist>Nirvana</artist> </or> </and> </predicate> <predicate> <and><object type=movies> <object><format>mpeg</format></object> <or><title><quote>Little Mermaid</quote></title> <title><quote>SnowWhite</quote></title> </or> </and> </predicate>

[0144] The corresponding entries in the index may be: object&type=music(predicate0, clause0) object>format>mp3 (predicate0, clause1) artist>U2(predicate0, clause2) artist>Nirvana (predicate0, clause2)object&type=movies (predicate1, clause0) object>format>mpeg (predicate1,clause1) title>Little Mermaid (predicate1, clause2) title>Snow White(predicate1, clause2).

[0145] That is, the index will have eight entries. In one embodiment, atleast three of these entries have to match a query for the query to berouted to the provider.

[0146] Query resolution is the process of determining a set of one ormore providers to which a given query should be routed. Sending allqueries to all providers is inefficient, therefore the distributedinformation discovery platform defines a framework for providers toregister the type of queries they are interested in receiving andprovides a query resolution and routing service. Providers may specifythe type of queries they wish to receive in their registration file.

[0147] In one embodiment, the minimal condition for matching a query toa provider is that the query has to have the same queryspace as theprovider registration. In some embodiments, the minimal condition formatching a query may be for the query to have at least one matchingelement to the queryspace of the provider registration. In oneembodiment, the set of providers may be selected by the resolver 102 ina certain order. In one embodiment, providers which have all clauses ofat least one predicate satisfied may be selected first. In order tomatch a predicate, a query may first be tokenized into a set of patterns(QNPs). In one embodiment, providers may be ranked based on the matchedpattern scores. In one embodiment, providers which do not have amatching predicate, but are similar in their responses and have the samequeryspace as providers who have a matching predicate may be selected ina lesser category. In one embodiment if the number of providers returnedis still less than the maximum, a provider may be selected (e.g. atrandom) from the same queryspace as the query. In this embodiment, thisallows the exploration of the provider content in case the providerregistration file is incomplete, or is not updated frequently.

[0148] As mentioned previously, there may be a score associated witheach (pattern, posting) pair in the resolver index. In one embodiment,scoring may be used to determine the popularity of providers for aparticular type of query. Scoring may be used in selecting the mostpopular providers relevant to the query first. Scoring works as follows.If a user sends some feedback in response to a query response, the(pattern, posting) pairs that matched the query may be retrieved fromthe corresponding queryspace index, and their scores updated (i.e.increased for a positive feedback or decreased for a negative one). Inone embodiment, a simple score update formula may be used:

Score(t+1)=(alpha)*Score(t)+(1−alpha)*Feedback

[0149] where (0<alpha <1) determines the rate of change of the score.Other embodiments may use other score update formulas.

[0150] In one embodiment, in instances where there are very fewproviders who match a query, providers may be selected that did notmatch the query, but who have registered the same query space and whoare similar to a provider who matched the query. In one embodiment, amethod similar to collaborative filtering may be used in determiningprovider similarity. Providers who tend to match the same queries areconsidered more similar. In one embodiment, a similarity matrix may bemaintained in the resolver. The entries in this matrix may determine thedegree of similarity between provider x and provider y.

[0151] A router may perform the certain functions. For example, in oneembodiment a router may receive the queries from the endapplication/consumer. In one embodiment a router may route the queriesto the appropriate providers. In one embodiment a router may merge theresults of the queries and presents them to the end application. In oneembodiment, a router may include routing or address information with itscommunications.

[0152] When the router receives a request from the network, it may askthe resolver for a list of nodes on the network that are registered aswanting to receive queries like the request received. Once the resolverreturns a set of network node endpoints, the router routes the query tothis set of providers. In one embodiment, the resolver may returnnetwork node IDs with the network node endpoints that may be relevantonly within the distributed information discovery platform and that maybe used for logging.

[0153] In one embodiment, a router may be a JAVA Servlet. The router maybe platform-independent so that the deployment platform for the routermay be Linux, Win32, etc. In some embodiments, routers may bedistributed or clustered.

[0154] In one embodiment, a router system may be organized to include arouter to perform certain functions, for example functions describedabove. In one embodiment a router system may include a RouterServlet toreceive routing requests and give access to real-time statistics. In oneembodiment, a router system may include a HttpRouteConnection to useHTTP as transport and XML as encoding for a route to a given provider.In one embodiment, a router system may include a Router. Stat to providestatistics for a given route, for example bandwidth, response times,traffic, etc.

[0155] The RouterServlet may receive a request to route a particularquery. In one embodiment, each routing request may be an HTTP requestwith certain headers. For example, a uuid or unique identifier for therequest (which may be used for logging purposes in the router, and mayhave other uses in other components or users of a distributedinformation discovery network). Another header may be a timeout or theamount of time to give each provider to respond. In one embodimentanother header may be a NumHits, where each provider may respond withseveral hits but the router may take only the first N hits to bepropagated back to the app/user. Another header may be a FlushAfter thatmay indicate to flush the response stream after receiving responses fromN providers.

[0156] In one embodiment, the body of the routing request may be anXML-encoded query (see description of queries above). In someembodiments, the routing request may also include a set of cookieheaders, which may be encoded, for example, as

[0157] “Set-Cookie:unique_provider_id=base64encoded_real_cookie”.

[0158] When RouterServlet receives a query request from the distributedinformation discovery network, it asks the resolver for a list of nodeson the network that are registered as wanting to receive queries likethis one. The resolver may return a set of network node URLs and networknode IDs (e.g. unique provider IDs stored within the distributedinformation discovery router system and used for logging). The Routermay then route the query to this set of providers.

[0159] The router may contact the list of providers returned by theresolver. At least one QRP interface may be used when the routercontacts the list of providers. In some embodiments a router is notlimited to any transport or encoding scheme. In one embodiment,different transports and encodings may be plugged in. In one embodiment,HTTP and light-weight XML encoding may be used.

[0160] In one embodiment, the router may use an exponential back-offalgorithm to handle spamming and/or slow or temporarily down hosts. Forexample, if a provider exceeds a set timeout, the resolver subsystem maybe alerted to make the provider no longer active in the subsystem. If atime-out is exceeded, or exceeded too often, the provider may beunregistered or flagged so that further resolutions do not include thisprovider.

[0161] In some embodiments, in addition to collating the responses fromthe providers, the router may also pass through HTTP cookies (cookiesmay be retrieved from and set on a URLConnection class via aget/setHeader method, so this may be transport-independent, since othernetwork-transport implementations of the URLConnection interface may beused). When passing a cookie from a provider to the client, the routermay encode them as “unique_provider_id=base64encoding_of_real_cookie”,for example, so that it may later match cookies with provider IDs whenthe user does another search.

[0162] In one embodiment, the Router may receive a query in XML formatthrough a HTTP interface. When the Router receives the query, it maysends the query to the Resolver through an HTTP Interface. The Resolvermay return with a list of providers that have registered interest inthis query. In one embodiment, the Router does not attempt to interpretthe query at all. The Router may then set up multiple threads, eachthread opening a URL to post the query to each of the provider. In oneembodiment, the query may be posted to each provider with a timeoutvalue. When the provider returns with a result page (e.g. in XML), therouter may parse the result page and extract the “hits” to be mergedwith the other hits from the other providers. The number of hits, thetimeout value and the number of provider results may be specifiedthrough a “preference” interface.

[0163] In one embodiment, the router may maintain a pool of TCP/IPconnections to the providers and reuse them. This reuse may reduce theoverhead in opening and closing connections. For example, each HTTPrequest to the providers may use KEEP_ALIVE so that the connections willnot be closed by the provider.

[0164] In one embodiment, the router system may track certain statisticsso that administrators may access the router system to view currentstatistics about their node, such as how many queries were sent to themtoday, what's the average response time, how many queries failed, etc.

[0165] A provider may be registered with multiple distributedinformation discovery routers. In such embodiments, real-time stats maybe aggregated at the time of viewing by code in the provider subsystem.This code may query each router to give up-to-the-moment stats for agiven provider. The resulting information is processed and displayed.

[0166] In some embodiments, a distributed information discovery routermay store and allow administrators to view historical data about theirnodes. In an embodiment, each router system may keep a local log of itsactions and export the log for download via HTTP with authenticationprotection. In one embodiment, logs may be periodically aggregated to alog-administrator machine with the script. Once aggregated from all therouter systems, the logs may then be parsed. The result of the parsingmay be a set of logs per provider.

[0167] In one embodiment, each parsed set of logs may include a logfile, for example with information regarding the router noted down forthat provider's ID (e.g., provider-id.log). In one embodiment, eachparsed set of logs may include information regarding successful routesof requests for that provider (e.g., provider-id-success.log). In oneembodiment, each parsed set of logs may include information regardingfailed routes of requests for that provider (e.g.,provider-id-error.log).

[0168] In the above example, the log file may be available for downloadby the administrator, so that a human administrator may run his own setof scripts on that data and maybe glean something only he wants to seefrom it. A log may be plotted for each provider (e.g. using gnuplotduring the parsing), so that the provider-human, who doesn't know how ordoesn't have the time to pipe the log to his own charting tools, mayvisualize the correspondence between time, number of successful routes,and number of failed routes. In one embodiment, a log file or parts of alog file may be accessible to applications or elements of theinformation discovery network.

[0169] In the above example, a failed route may be one where theprovider didn't accept the connection or took too long and the router“hung up.” In one embodiment, for example, parsing logs may generatelogs and graphs for three time-periods: monthly, weekly, and daily, andmay be shown to the administrator through an easy point-and-click HTMLinterface.

[0170] In some embodiments, routing queries to providers may be based ontheir similarity with other providers. For example, in one embodimentalthough a provider may not have registered the query keywords itsqueryspace may be similar to that of a matching queryspace. In oneembodiment similarity may be computed using mutual information onprevious positive responses, for example if a pair of providers haveboth previously provided accurate responses to one query then if one ofthe pair is selected to receive a query the other also may be selectedto receive the query. Alternatively, Hebbian learning, 2D histograms,joint density distribution, etc. may be used to determine otherproviders that a query may be routed to even if the query did not matchthe other provider's registration.

[0171] One embodiment of a distributed information discovery platformmay be implemented on a network that supports HTTP. In one embodiment, arouter for HTTP networks may open a connection to each provider overHTTP, send a message to the provider over this connection, and wait forresponses from providers over this connection.

[0172] The HTTP router may also use KEEP_ALIVE to maintain a connectionto each provider it has already queried. The router may then makemultiple requests to this provider over a single connection,remembering, for a given provider, the queue of requests. This methodmay prevent repeated opening and closing of connections to providers.

[0173] Using HTTP, a query request may be sent as an HTTP post to aprovider QRP interface, and the provider may process the request. Forexample, the following would post the query message to the provider QRPinterface “abcdsearchjsp”:

[0174] POST/abcdsearch.jsp HTTP/1.0

[0175] Content Type: text/xml

[0176] <?xml version=‘1.0’?>

[0177] . . .

[0178] For embodiments in which queries are sent to providers with HTTP,a POST request may be used. In one embodiment, the content type of therequest should be “text/xml”. The body of the request may include thequery. In one embodiment, the query is an XML document.

[0179] In one embodiment, the distributed information discovery platformmay provide a consumer-focused web front end for querying providers andpresenting responses. This front end may perform certain functions. Inone embodiment, aggregation of responses may be performed, whereprovider responses are returned by the router and aggregated by thefront end. In one embodiment, presentation of responses may beperformed, where responses are presented in raw HTML format as they arereceived by the router from the providers. In one embodiment, queryranking may be performed, where responses are ranked according to therelevance of the query to the responses. In one embodiment, providersignup facilities are provided for providers to sign up to registertheir endpoints and monitor their statistics.

[0180] Some embodiments may employ bidding on search queries to improverelevance in a distributed search system. For example, a distributedinformation discovery platform may provide a method to determinerelevance of provider responses including several steps. In oneembodiment each provider may be allocated a specific number of “tokens”,either only once, a certain number of times, at certain intervals, orwith each query request, either in addition to existing tokens or as areplacement. When a provider receives a query, in addition to itsresponses it specifies the number of tokens which it is prepared to bidto have the responses displayed. In one embodiment, when the routingsystem collates all the responses, it considers the amount of tokens bidby each provider in its ranking algorithm. The more tokens bid, thehigher the rank of that response. In one embodiment, tokens may be usedup every time a provider bids on a query, and may be redeemed when auser clicks on a response. In this way, providers with consistentlyuseful responses may rise to the top of the list over time.

[0181] This bidding method may provide for search results to be rankedwithin a distributed environment. Bidding may also address spamming thatoccurs when providers send irrelevant responses deliberately to drawusers to their resources.

[0182] In some embodiments, user feedback may be coupled with providerbidding for query resolution. In some embodiments, provider calculatedrelevance may be combined with relevance determined by the distributedinformation discovery router system. In some embodiments, personalized(e.g. thru cookies) information could be applied for relevancedetermination.

[0183] In one embodiment, each provider may be allocated a limitedamount of tokens per day, per week, etc. When the tokens are used up,the provider's results may be dropped to the bottom of the list.

[0184] In some embodiments, a score may be used for each entry in theregistration index to select providers who performed well in the past onsimilar queries. Different methods may be used for index score update.The registration index may be dynamic in a sense that terms may addedand deleted based on user queries and provider performance, and not onlybased on provider registrations.

[0185] In one embodiment, if the number of tokens specified by aprovider is greater than its total allocated number of tokens, thenumber of tokens may be invalid, disregarded, and/or replaced by thetotal allocated number of tokens, or any like error correcting action orcombination of actions. That provider may be notified of at least thediscrepancy. In one embodiment that provider may be blacklisted.

[0186] In one embodiment, a provider may return several search resultsin one response to a search query. In one embodiment, a provider maysplit its bid of a number of tokens between a plurality of searchresults in its response. In one embodiment a provider may bid no tokenson a response or on a search result. In one embodiment only tokens bidon search results a user clicks or otherwise uses may be redeemed andreallocated to the provider.

[0187] In one embodiment, user feedback may be used to determinerelevancy. A user may be prompted to determine which search responsesbest matched a search query. Statistical information regardingproviders, searches, categories of searches, subject of searches may becalculated, saved, and used to evaluate the probability of relevance foranother search and results from information obtained from userinteraction. In one embodiment a user may not be aware that informationis derived from the user's interaction. A system may store and retrievethe choices or selections of a user among responses to a query as userfeedback from which to compile statistical information regardingrelevancy. In one embodiment a consumer may evaluate statisticalinformation to determine relevancy of search results or scope ofqueries. In one embodiment a hub may evaluate statistical information todetermine relevancy of search results or scope of queries. In oneembodiment queries, responses, and user feedback regarding relevancy aretabulated by user.

[0188] In one embodiment, providers may respond to queries with an XML‘result’ document, which may have the following DTD, for example:

[0189] <!DOCTYPE result [

[0190] <!ELEMENT result—(base-href?, icon?, hit*)>

[0191] <!ELEMENT base-href—(#PCDATA)>

[0192] <!ELEMENT icon—(#PCDATA)>

[0193] <!ELEMENT hit—(href, anchor, html?, relevance?)>

[0194] <!ELEMENT href—(#PCDATA)>

[0195] <!ELEMENTanchor—(#PCDATA)>

[0196] <!ELEMENT html—(#PCDATA)>

[0197] <!ELEMENT relevance—(#PCDATA)>

[0198] ]>

[0199] In this example, a result may include several elements. Forexample, an optional base-href URL, providing defaults for URLs in theresults. An optional icon URL, providing an icon for the provider mayalso be included. A result may also include a sequence of hits. Each hitmay include an href URL, naming the location of this hit, and anchortext, describing the hit. Optionally, some html describing the hit maybe provided, as, for example, indications of the relevance of this hit,such as a number between 1 and 100.

[0200] One example of an HTTP request of the form may be:

[0201] POST/search.jsp HTTP/1.0

[0202] Content-Type: text/xml

[0203] Schema: http://www.infrasearch.com/opensearch

[0204] <query> <text>foo bar</text></query>,

[0205] Such a form may get an HTTP response of the form: Content-Type:text/xml <result>     <icon>http://foo.com/images/icon.gif</icon>    <base-url>http://foo.com/</base-url>     <hit>         <href>/documents/foo.txt</href>          <anchor>Foo</anchor>         <relevance>50</relevance>     </hit>     <hit>         <href>/documents/bar.txt</href>          <anchor>Bar</anchor>         <relevance>35</relevance>     </hit> </result>

[0206] One problem that arises in a network with many informationproviders is that if a user issues a common query such as “dog” or “car”or “stocks”, the multitude of information providers that have validresponses may overwhelm the user. For example, car parts databases,manufacturers, and local dealers may try to respond to an overly genericquery of “car.” Three-letter words are not the only queries that posethis problem. Queries such as “stocks” or “company earnings” stillpresent the same problem.

[0207] A better results-ranking algorithm may not adequately address theabove problem because what the user is actually looking for isunder-described. A distributed information discovery platform mayinclude functionality to guide the user to what he or she actually wantsto see. Results from providers may be broken into logical groups, suchthat a user can pick which group of results the user considers relevantto the search. In some embodiments, multiple layers may be provided sothat the user may continue picking subgroups of subgroups, until theuser sees an interesting set of results. To present the user withgrouped results, a hierarchical document-clustering algorithm may beused.

[0208] The hierarchical document-clustering algorithm may be implementedas part of a QRP interface, a hub, a consumer or provider, a distributedinformation discovery platform, or otherwise distributed among nodes onthe network. It may be a stand alone application, a plug-in, a module,or otherwise function within the distributed information discoverynetwork. In one embodiment the hierarchical document-clusteringalgorithm may be implemented in combination with other algorithms ormethods of ordering, ranking, or otherwise arranging search results. Forexample, in one embodiment individual results may be scored and acombined score may be computed each logical group from the score of theindividual results broken into those logical group. The computation mayinvolve an average, a mean, a mode, a percentile, a percentage, a high,a low, a ranking, or other manner of indicating by the computedrelevancy of the content of a logical group, including relativerelevancy in relation to the other logical groups.

[0209] In one embodiment, the hierarchical document-clustering algorithmmay group the results such that another search query combining thesearch parameters of the current search with the logical traitassociated with a particular logical group as a search parameter wouldyield at least substantially the results broken into that logical group.For example, in one embodiment a search for “dog” may yield logicalgroups relating to “house”, “cat”, etc., and the “house” group maycontain results similar to those returned by a search for “dog” and“house” combined.

[0210] In one embodiment, a consumer receives at least one responsealready broken into logical groups using the hierarchicaldocument-clustering algorithm. A consumer may combine together similarlogical groups from different responses that are themselves broken intological groups. In some embodiments, a response may be only the logicalgroups and not their content. Logical groups or individual results maybe indicators, pointers, or other reference to a location on the networkwhere data may be stored and retrieved. In one embodiment the locationis a virtual location and represents multiple physical locations.

[0211] In some embodiments, the distributed information discoveryplatform may be applied to consumer web search applications. Thedistributed information discovery platform may have many otherapplications as well, some of which are summarized below by way ofexample:

[0212] Consumer Web Search:

[0213] The distributed information discovery platform may be applied forconsumer web search. Since the distributed information discoveryplatform may be orthogonal to current crawler based approaches, it maybe used in conjunction with a traditional search engines as acomplementary discovery engine. Whereas crawler based approaches may befine for static content, the distributed information discovery platformmay handle searches for deep, dynamic content such as news, productinformation and auctions.

[0214] B2B (Business-to-Business) Networks:

[0215] The distributed information discovery platform may be employedfor B2B networks such as exchanges and supply chain networks. Whereasthe conventional approach to data synchronization in exchanges is toreplicate buyer and seller data at the exchange, a peer-to-peer approachmay be more efficient. Using a private network version of thedistributed information discovery platform, trading partners may searchfor information across a range of partners' databases all connected viaa common query protocol. In addition, since the distributed informationdiscovery platform allows the specification of arbitrary schemas forsearching, partners may rapidly adapt their existing corporate databasesto communicate via the query routing network.

[0216] Extranet Applications:

[0217] The distributed information discovery platform may be applied tothe integration of extranet resources between business partners. As anexample, consider the case of a customer complaining to computer vendorabout a problem with their PC. The customer service representative atthe computer vendor may be faced with the problem of searching multiplepartner databases to find the solution to the problem. The distributedinformation discovery platform may be used to rapidly integrateweb-enabled databases from their partners and search them in aconsistent fashion.

[0218] Peer-to-Peer Networks:

[0219] In addition or alternatively to being used with standard webnetwork protocols, the distributed information discovery platform may beapplied to a peer-to-peer network discovery model. The peers in adistributed information discovery network may be large servers, PCs,workstations, cell phones, etc. The distributed information discoveryplatform may provide a consistent discovery framework linking variouspeer-to-peer networks together.

[0220]FIG. 10 illustrates an example of several peers 200 in apeer-to-peer network according to one embodiment. Peer 200A may beexecuting a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) 206, and client 202A may beexecuting on the JVM 206. Peer 200C may be executing a native coderuntime environment 208, and client 202C may be executing within theenvironment 208. Peer 200B may include a client 202B and a service 204.Peer 200B may provide advertisement to service 204. Clients 202A and202C may request and, if authorized, be granted access to service 204.Client 202B may also access service 204.

[0221] In one embodiment, peer-to-peer protocols may be embodied asmarkup language (e.g. XML) messages sent between peer softwarecomponents acting as clients and services. Peer-to-peer platformmessages may define the protocol used to connect the components, and mayalso be used to address resources offered by the component. The use ofpolicies and messages to define a protocol allows many different kindsof nodes to participate in the protocol. Each node may be free toimplement the protocol in a manner best suited to the node's abilitiesand role(s). For example, not all nodes may be capable of supporting aJava runtime environment; the protocol definition may not require orimply the use of Java on a node.

[0222] In one embodiment, the peer-to-peer platform may use markuplanguage (e.g. XML) messages as a basis for providing Internet-scalablepeer-to-peer communication. Each peer's messaging layer mayasynchronously deliver an ordered sequence of bytes from client toservice, using a networking transport. The messaging layer may maintainthe notion (on both client and service) that the sequence of bytes isone atomic unit. In one embodiment, messages are sent to endpoints. Anendpoint is a destination (e.g. a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)) onany networking transport capable of sending and receiving Datagram-stylemessages. In one embodiment, the peer-to-peer platform does not assumethat the networking transport is IP-based. The messaging layer may usethe transport specified by the URI to send and receive messages. Bothreliable connection-based transports such as TCP/IP and unreliableconnectionless transports like UDP/IP may be supported. Other messagetransports such as IRDA, and emerging transports like Bluetooth may alsobe supported by using this endpoint addressing scheme.

[0223] In one embodiment, peer-to-peer platform messages are Datagramsthat may contain an envelope, a stack of protocol headers with bodies,and an optional trailer. In one embodiment, the envelope may contain aheader, a message digest, a source endpoint (optional), and destinationendpoint. In on embodiment, each protocol header includes a <tag> namingthe protocol in use and a body length. In one embodiment, a protocolbody may have a variable length amount of bytes that is protocol <tag>dependent. In one embodiment, a protocol body may include one or morecredentials used to identify the sender to the receiver. In oneembodiment, a variable-length trailer (could be zero) consisting ofauditing information may be piggybacked on a message. The trailer sizemay be computed by subtracting the body size and envelope size from thetotal size specified in the envelope. In one embodiment, the right topiggyback trailer information may be regulated by the messagingcredentials in the message. When an unreliable networking transport isused, each message may be delivered once to the destination, may bedelivered more than once to the destination, or may not arrive at thedestination. On an unreliable networking transport, messages may arriveat a destination in a different order than sent.

[0224] Policies, applications and services layered upon the coreprotocols are responsible for message reordering, duplicate messageremoval, and for processing acknowledgement messages that indicate somepreviously sent message actually arrived at a peer. Regardless oftransport, a message may be unicasted (point-to-point) between twopeers. Messages may also be broadcasted (like a multicast) to a peergroup. In one embodiment, no multicast support in the underlyingtransport is required.

[0225] One embodiment of a peer-to-peer protocol may support credentialsin messages. A credential is a key that, when presented in a messagebody, is used to identify a sender and to verify that sender's right tosend the message to the specified endpoint. The credential is an opaquetoken that may be presented each time a message is sent. The sendingaddress placed in the message envelope may be crosschecked with thesender's identity in the credential. In one embodiment, credentials maybe stored in the message body on a per-protocol <tag> basis. In oneembodiment, each credential's implementation may be specified as aplug-in policy, which may allow multiple authentication policies tocoexist on the same network.

[0226] One embodiment of a distributed information discovery platformmay be implemented in a peer-to-peer environment using a router. In oneembodiment, a router may establish a connection to a provider end-point(i.e. by opening an output pipe), send a message to the provider endpoint (i.e. using the pipe), and accept responses from the providers(i.e. on a dedicated input pipe). A peer-to-peer platform router mayinclude several components. One component may receive requests frompeer-to-peer platform peers. A component may route queries topeer-to-peer platform peers. Another component may receive responsesfrom peer-to-peer platform peers. In some embodiments there may beoverlaps between components.

[0227] A component receiving requests from peers may listen to an inputpipe for query requests, with the resolver resolving a set of peers toroute the query to when a query request arrives. In one embodiment, fora peer using a peer-to-peer platform the router may send the requestover an output pipe to that peer's input pipe. A peer-to-peer platformrouter may include one input pipe dedicated to receiving query responsesfrom peer-to-peer platform peers. When a sufficient condition has beenmet to flush responses back to the requesting peer, the peer-to-peerplatform router may send the request peer a query response message.

[0228] The distributed information discovery platform query routingprotocol may map to peer-to-peer platform pipes in a straightforwardmanner. Peer-to-peer platform pipes provides a path to transport thequery request, query response, and registration messages in thepeer-to-peer environment. In each case, the query routing protocolmessage is enveloped by a peer-to-peer platform message.

[0229] For query request messages, the peer-to-peer platform message mayinclude two tag/value pairs: “request” and “responsePipe”. The actualquery request message may be stored as the value of the “request” tag.The pipe advertisement for the pipe the peer wishes to receive theresponses on may be stored as the value of the “responsePipe” tag. Usingan output pipe, a peer delivers the query response peer-to-peer platformmessage to the input pipe of a distributed information discoveryplatform peer.

[0230] Query response messages may include the tag/value pair:“responses”. When a distributed information discovery platform peer hasobtained an answer to a query request, it may open an output pipe to thepipe specified in the query request message's “responsePipe” tag andsends the query response peer-to-peer platform message with the“responses” tag filled in with the response.

[0231] Registration messages may include the tag/value pairs:“registration” and “responsePipe”. The registration document may bestored inside the “registration” tag. The pipe advertisement for thepipe the peer wishes to receive the responses on may be stored as thevalue of the “responsePipe” tag. Using an output pipe, the peer may sendthis message to a distributed information discovery platform hub (whichitself may be a peer-to-peer platform peer). The peer receiving theregistration may process the registration and send back a success orfailure code to the pipe specified by the “responsePipe” tag in theregistration message.

[0232] In one embodiment, instead of deploying a single set of software(an OS, with its device drivers, and applications) on many hardwareplatforms, a peer-to-peer platform creates a protocol-based networkplatform. This approach allows many network nodes to adopt one or moreof the protocols of the platform. A “network node” is a node on thenetwork that may participate in (i.e. be a peer in) the peer-to-peernetwork platform. The peer-to-peer platform may provide infrastructureservices for peer-to-peer applications in the peer-to-peer model. Thepeer-to-peer platform may provide a set of primitives (infrastructure)for use in providing services and/or applications in the peer-to-peerdistributed fashion. The peer-to-peer platform may provide mechanismswith which peers may find each other, cooperate with each other, andcommunicate with each other. Software developers may use thepeer-to-peer platform as a standard to deploy inter-operableapplications, services and content. Thus, the peer-to-peer platform mayprovide a base on which to construct peer-to-peer network computingapplications on the Internet.

[0233] The peer-to-peer platform may provide a mechanism for dynamicallycreating groups and groups of groups. The peer-to-peer platform may alsoprovide mechanisms for peers to discover (become aware of) other peersand groups, and mechanisms for peers and/or peer groups to establishtrust in other peers and/or peer groups 304. The peer-to-peer platformmay also provide a mechanism for monitoring peers and peer groups 304,and for metering usage between peers and peer groups 304. Thepeer-to-peer platform may also provide a mechanism for tracking peersand peer groups 304, and for establishing a control policy between peersand in peer groups 304. The peer-to-peer platform may also provide asecurity layer for verifying and authorizing peers that wish to connectto other peers or peer groups 304.

[0234] In one embodiment, peers (and therefore the entire collectiveplatform of peers) may be defined by several elements. For example, apeer may implement and use a set of protocols. Peers may use underlyingsoftware platform and network transports. Rules and conventions maygovern the peer's role in the platform. Peers may produce (export toothers) or consume (import from others) a set of resources.

[0235] The peer-to-peer platform protocols may provide inter-operabilitybetween compliant software components (executing on potentiallyheterogeneous peer runtimes). The term compliant may refer to a singleprotocol or multiple protocols. That is, some peers may not implementall the defined protocols. Furthermore, some peers may only use aportion (client-side or server-side only) of a particular protocol. Theprotocols defined by the peer-to-peer protocol may be realized over anetwork. Networks that may support the peer-to-peer platform protocolsmay include, but are not limited to, wireless and wired networks such asthe Internet, a corporate intranet, Local Area Networks (LANs), WideArea Networks (WANS), and dynamic proximity networks. One or more of theprotocols of the peer-to-peer platform may also be used within a singlecomputer. The size and complexity of the network nodes supporting theseprotocols may range from a simple light switch to a complex, highlyavailable server and even to mainframe and supercomputers.

[0236] In one embodiment, the distance, latency, and implementation ofpeer software is not specified by the peer-to-peer platform protocols,only a common discovery and communication methodology, creating a “blackbox” effect. The definitions of protocol and peer softwareimplementation issues may be referred to as a binding. A binding maydescribe how the protocols are bound to an underlying network transport(like TCP/IP or UDP/IP) or to a software platform such as UNIX or Java.

[0237] Peers that wish to cooperate and communicate with each other viathe peer-to-peer platform may do so by following a set of rules andconventions called a policy. Each policy may orchestrate the use of oneor more protocols operating on a set of platform resources. A commonpolicy adopted by peers with different implementations may allow thepeers to appear as a single distributed system. The policies may rangefrom tightly-coupled to loosely-coupled policies. Tightly-coupledpolicies may create tightly-coupled systems. Loosely-coupled policiesmay create loosely coupled systems. The policies may rely on the set ofprotocols provided by the peer-to-peer platform. In one embodiment, somepolicies may be standard and operate in a wide variety of deployments.These standard policies may be referred to as the peer-to-peer platformstandard policies. In one embodiment, custom policies may be supported.Policies may offer a means of tailoring the peer-to-peer platform to aproblem, using centralized, decentralized, or hybrid approaches whereappropriate. In one embodiment, these policies may be made open to allvendors, software developers, and IT managers as a means of adaptingpeer-to-peer platform to a networking environment and to the problem athand.

[0238] In one embodiment, the peer-to-peer platform core protocols maybe decentralized, enabling peer-to-peer discovery and communication. Oneembodiment provides standard plug-in policy types that may offer theability to mix-in centralization as a means of enabling severalobjectives, such as: efficient long-distance peer lookup and rendezvoususing peer naming and discovery policies; simple, low-cost informationsearch and indexing using sharing policies; and inter-operability withexisting centralized networking infrastructure and security authoritiesin networks such as corporate, public, private, or university networksusing administration policies.

[0239] In one embodiment, a network node using the peer-to-peer platform(i.e. a peer) may provide one or more advertisement documents. Eachadvertisement document may represent a resource somewhere on the peer,or even on another device or peer. In one embodiment, all advertisementdocuments may be defined in a markup language such as XML and thereforemay be software platform neutral. Each document may be converted to andfrom a platform specific representation such as a Java object. Themanner in which the conversion takes place may be described in thesoftware platform binding.

[0240] In one embodiment, the peer-to-peer platform may allow softwareimplementation issues to be dealt with by the underlying softwareplatform (e.g. Java, UNIX, or Windows). The combination of standardpolicies, platform resource advertisements, and flexible bindingpractices may yield a flexible system that may scale to Internetproportions.

[0241] In one embodiment, the peer-to-peer platform architecture may bedefined in terms of its protocols, resource advertisements, and standardpolicies. The peer-to-peer platform protocols may be realized withinvarious software platforms, such as the Java platform. Network protocolbindings may serve to ensure inter-operability with existing contenttransfer protocols, network transports, routers, and firewalls. Softwareplatform bindings may describe how protocol stacks are implemented, andhow advertisements are converted to and from language constructs (suchas objects) that represent the advertised resource (such as a peergroup). In one embodiment, the Java platform may be used to createJava-based peer-to-peer platform peers. HTTP is a common reliablecontent transfer protocol that may be used in the peer-to-peer platform.Other content transfer protocols may also be supported. TCP is a commonreliable connection protocol that may be used in the peer-to-peerplatform. Other connection protocols may also be supported. UDP is acommon Datagram message protocol that may be used in the peer-to-peerplatform. Other message protocols may also be supported.

[0242] The peer-to-peer platform may mold distinct network nodes calledpeers into a coherent, yet distributed peer-to-peer network computingplatform. In preferred embodiments, the platform may have no singlepoint of configuration, no single point of entry, and no single point offailure. In one embodiment, the peer-to-peer network computing platformmay be completely decentralized, and may become more robust as itexpands through the addition of network nodes. Unlike tightly-coupledsystems, the high level of robustness delivered by peer-to-peer platformmay be achieved without sacrificing simplicity. The peer-to-peerplatform may be a very simple platform that preferably does not rely onhigh-speed interconnects, complex operating systems, large disk farms,or any other technology on which traditional tightly-coupled systemsrely.

[0243] Network nodes (called peers) of various kinds may join theplatform by implementing one or more of the platform's protocols.Various nodes including, but not limited to, Java, SPARC, x86, PowerPC,and ARM-based nodes may all be placed on an equal footing as “peers”,with no one node type favored over any other node type. Each peer mayoperate independently of any other peer, providing a degree ofreliability not commonly found in tightly-coupled homogeneous systems.Peers may discover each other on the network in order to formloosely-coupled relationships.

[0244] Peers may contain software components that act as clients andservices that request and provide platform functions respectively. Asoftware component may act as a client, a service, or both. Thepeer-to-peer platform may recognize different kinds of softwarecomponents within a peer including: a policy or a named behavior, rule,or convention that is to be followed by each member of a peer group (mayor may not be loadable from the network and/or a storage medium such asa disk); a client or software component that may request a platformfunction by invoking a protocol; a service or a named, loadable libraryof code providing a platform function, which may be viewed as a means ofencapsulating a policy implementation; and an application or a named,loadable service that interacts with a user, for example using a GUI.

[0245] In one embodiment, peer-to-peer platform messages may be definedin a markup language such as XML. FIG. 11 illustrates a message withenvelope 250, message body 252, and optional trailer 254 according toone embodiment. A message may include multiple message bodies 252.

[0246] The peer-to-peer platform may provide pipes for informationexchange between peers. A pipe encapsulates a message-based protocol anda dynamic set of endpoints. In one embodiment, a pipe requires that theencapsulated protocol be unidirectional, asynchronous, and stateless.Pipes connect one or more peer endpoints. In one embodiment, at eachendpoint, software to send or receive, as well as to manage associatedqueues or buffers, is assumed, but not mandated. These pipe endpointsmay be referred to as pipe input and output endpoints. In oneembodiment, a pipe may be associated with a group and not withindividual peers. Peer communication endpoints (both input and output)may be bound and unbound from a pipe in a dynamic fashion, providing anabstract “in and out” mailbox that is independent of any single peer.When a message is sent into a pipe, the message may be sent to all peerendpoints currently connected (listening) to the pipe. In oneembodiment, the set of currently connected endpoints may be obtainedusing a pipe resolver protocol. In one embodiment, a pipe may offerpoint-to-point communication. A point-to-point pipe connects two peerendpoints together, i.e. an input endpoint that receives messages sentfrom the output endpoint. In one embodiment, no reply operation issupported. Additional information in the message payload (like a uniqueidentifier) may be needed to thread message sequences. In oneembodiment, a pipe may offer broadcast communication. A broadcast pipemay connect multiple input and output peer endpoints together. Messagesflow into the pipe from output endpoints and pass by listening inputendpoints. A broadcast message is sent to all listening endpointssimultaneously. This process may actually create multiple copies of themessage to be sent. In one embodiment, when peer groups map tounderlying physical subnets in a one-to-one fashion, transport multicastmay also be used as an implementation optimization provided by pipes.

[0247] In a peer-to-peer network platform, peers may cooperate andcommunicate in peer groups that follow rules and conventions known aspolicies. Each cooperation or communication policy may be embodied as anamed behavior, rule, or convention that may be followed by each memberof a peer group. The behavior is typically encapsulated in a body ofcode packaged, for example, as a dynamic link library (DLL) or JavaArchive (JAR) file, but any embodiment is allowed. In one embodiment, apolicy name may include a canonical name string and a series ofdescriptive keywords that uniquely identifies the policy. In order touse a policy, a peer may locate an implementation suitable for thepeer's runtime environment. Multiple implementations of the same policyallow Java and other non-native peers to use Java (or other) codeimplementations, and native peers can use native code implementations.In one embodiment, a standard policy resolver protocol may be used tofind active (i.e. running on some peer) and inactive (i.e. not running,but present on some peer) implementations. In one embodiment, once animplementation has been activated, the policy resolver may be used in anongoing manner to perform Inter-Policy Communication (IPC) withouthaving to create a pipe. Low-level policies, in particular, may need acommunication mechanism that does not rely on pipes. The pipe transportpolicy for example, may not be able to use a pipe to communicate withinstances of itself. In one embodiment, policy implementations may bepreconfigured into a peer or may be loaded from the network. In oneembodiment, the process of finding, downloading and installing a policyimplementation from the network may be similar to performing a search onthe Internet for a web page, retrieving the page, and then installingthe required plug-in. Once a policy is installed and activated, pipes orthe policy resolver protocol may be used by the implementation tocommunicate with all instances of the same policy.

[0248] In one embodiment, a policy may have a name that also indicatesthe type and/or purpose of the policy. An optional set of keywords mayfurther describe the policy. In one embodiment, the name and keywordelements may be stored within a markup language (e.g. XML) policyadvertisement document. Each policy advertisement document may beembedded in a peer group's advertisement document. In one embodiment, apolicy advertisement may provide the policy resolver with only a portionof the search criteria needed to find a suitable implementation. Theother information needed to execute a successful policy search mayinclude a peer advertisement. For example, in one embodiment a peeradvertisement may include a peer's communication endpoints (addresses onits active network transports), runtime name (Java, SPARC, x86, etc.),additional runtime constraints and requirements (optional), peer name(optional), and security policies (optional).

[0249] In one embodiment, a peer group may include two or morecooperating peers that adhere to one or more policies. In oneembodiment, the peer-to-peer platform does not dictate when, where, orwhy to create a peer group. The kinds of peer groups found in theplatform are determined by the set of policies assigned to those groups.In one embodiment, peers wishing to join a peer group may first locate acurrent member of the peer group, and then request to join the peergroup. The application to join may either be rejected or accepted by oneor more of the current members. In one embodiment, membership acceptancepolicies may enforce a vote, or alternatively may elect one or moredesignated group representatives to accept or reject new membershipapplications. The peer-to-peer platform recognizes several motivationsfor creating or joining peer groups including, but not limited to,communication and content sharing.

[0250] One embodiment of the peer-to-peer platform may provide supportfor communication and content sharing groups including, but not limitedto, the ability to find nearby peers, the ability to find named peersanywhere on the peer-to-peer platform, the ability to find named peergroups anywhere on the peer-to-peer platform, and the ability to findand exchange shared content.

[0251] One embodiment of the peer-to-peer platform may provide adiscovery policy that may be used to search for peers, and peer groups304. The search criteria may include a peer or peer group name (string).One embodiment of the peer-to-peer platform may provide anauthentication policy that may be used to validate, distribute, andauthenticate a group member's credentials. The authentication policy maydefine the type of credential used in the message-based protocols usedwithin the peer group. The authentication policy may be the initialpoint of connect (like a login) for all new group members.

[0252] One embodiment of the peer-to-peer platform may provide amembership policy that may be used by the current members to reject oraccept a new group membership application. Current members may use themembership policy during the login process. One embodiment of thepeer-to-peer platform may provide a content sharing policy that maydefine the rules for content exchange. Each peer in a group may storecontent. The sharing policy may encapsulate such behaviors as access,replication, and searching.

[0253] One embodiment of the peer-to-peer platform may provide a policyresolver policy that may be used to execute the implementation search.Once the implementation is activated, the resolver may maintain its nameand status within the peer and respond to requests to find activepolicies. One embodiment of the peer-to-peer platform may provide a piperesolver policy that may be used to locate all the peers using (e.g.bound to) a specific pipe.

[0254] Network peer groups may be formed based upon the proximity of onepeer to another peer. Proximity-based peer groups may serve to subdividethe network into abstract regions. A region may serve as a placeholderfor general communication and security policies that deal with existingnetworking infrastructure, communication scopes and securityrequirements. In one embodiment, the peer-to-peer platform may include anetwork peer group discovery protocol that may be used by peers to findnetwork regions and to obtain a region's peer group advertisementdocument.

[0255] As an individual peer boots, it may use the network peer groupdiscovery protocol to determine network information. For example, a peermay determine what network region the peer is attached to or whatpolicies are associated with this region of the network. In oneembodiment, administration and security policies may be embedded withinthe net peer group advertisement to help peers identify which policiesmay be required within the local existing network infrastructure. A peermay find out what other peers are attached to a same network region. Theinformation available may include what services exist on other peersattached to a same network region.

[0256] The network regions are virtual regions. In other words, theirboundaries may or may not reflect any underlying physical networkboundaries such as those imposed by routers and firewalls. In oneembodiment, the concept of a region may virtualize the notion of routersand firewalls, subdividing the network in a self-organizing fashionwithout respect to actual physical network boundaries.

[0257] Content peer groups may be formed primarily to share resourcessuch as services and files. Content peer groups may contain peers fromany network peer group, or even peers that do not belong to a networkpeer group. The rules of sharing content may be determined by the peergroup's content sharing policy. Each peer in the content peer group maystore a portion of the overall group content. Peers may work together tosearch, index, and update the collective content. The use of filenamesto identify shared content may cause problems including namingcollisions. In one embodiment, the peer-to-peer platform addresses thisshared content naming problem by letting services and applications usemetadata to describe shared content. The metadata may contain much morespecific information (e.g. XML-typed information) that may preventcollisions and improve search accuracy. Furthermore, in one embodiment,multiple metadata descriptors (called content advertisements) may beused to identify a single instance of shared content. Allowing multipleadvertisements enables applications and services to describe content ina very personal, custom manner that may enable greater search accuracyin any language.

[0258] The peer-to-peer platform's security model may be orthogonal tothe concepts of peers, policies, peer groups 304, and pipes in thepeer-to-peer platform. In one embodiment, security in the peer-to-peerplatform may include credentials, authenticators, or policies. Acredential is an opaque token that may provide an identity and a set ofassociated capabilities. An authenticator is code that may receivemessages that either request a new credential or request that anexisting credential be validated. Security policies at the network orcontent peer group level may provide a comprehensive security model thatcontrols peer-to-peer communication as well as content sharing.

[0259] In one embodiment, all messages may include a network peer groupcredential that identifies the sender of the message as a full member ingood standing. In addition to this low-level communication credential,content peer groups may define membership credentials that define amember's rights, privileges, and role within the group and contentaccess and sharing credentials that define a member's rights to thecontent stored within the group.

[0260] One motivation for grouping peers together is to share content.Types of content items that may be shared include, but are not limitedto, text files, structured documents such as PDF and XML files, andactive content like a network service. In one embodiment, content may beshared among group members, but not groups, and thus no single item ofcontent may belong to more than one group. In one embodiment, each itemof content may have a unique identifier also known as its canonicalname. This name may include a peer group universal unique identifier(UUID) and another name that may be computed, parsed, and maintained bypeer group members. In one embodiment, the content's name implementationwithin the peer group is not mandated by the peer-to-peer platform. Thename may be a hash code, a URI, or a name generated by any suitablemeans of uniquely identifying content within a peer group. The entirecanonical content name may be referred to as a content identifier. FIG.12 illustrates an exemplary content identifier according to oneembodiment. In one embodiment, a content item may be advertised to makethe item's existence known and available to group members through theuse of content advertisements.

[0261] Each peer group member may share content with other members usinga sharing policy that may name or rely on a sharing protocol. Thedefault content sharing protocol may be a standard peer group sharingprotocol of the peer-to-peer platform. Higher-level content systems suchas file systems and databases may be layered upon the peer group sharingprotocol. In on embodiment, the peer group sharing protocol is astandard policy embodied as a core protocol. In one embodiment,higher-level content protocols are optional and may be mandated by acustom policy and not the peer-to-peer platform.

[0262]FIG. 13 is a block diagram illustrating two peers using a layeredsharing policy and several protocols to share content according to oneembodiment. Each peer 200 includes core services 210 and one or morehigh-level, optional services 220. Core services 210 may include peergroup sharing software that may be used to access a local store 214(e.g. sharable content). High-level services 220 may include suchservices as the content management services 222 and the search and indexsystem services 224 of this illustration. The core services 210 andhigh-level services 220 interface through a peer group sharing API 216to the peer group sharing software 212. The peer group sharing software212 on the two peers 200 may interface to each other using the low-levelpeer group sharing protocol 218. High-level services 220 may interfaceusing higher-level protocols. For example, the content managementservices 222 on the two peers may interface using peer group contentmanagement protocols 226, and the search and index system services 224may interface using content search and indexing protocols 228.

[0263] An instance of content may be defined as a copy of an item ofcontent. Each content copy may reside on a different peer in the peergroup. The copies may differ in their encoding type. HTML, XML and WMLare examples of encoding types. These copies may have the same contentidentifier, and may even exist on the same peer. An encoding metadataelement may be used to differentiate the two copies. Each copy may havethe same content identifier as well as a similar set of elements andattributes. Making copies of content on different peers may help anysingle item of content be more available. For example, if an item hastwo instances residing on two different peers, only one of the peersneeds to be alive and respond to the content request. In one embodiment,whether to copy an item of content may be a policy decision that may beencapsulated in higher-level applications and services.

[0264] One embodiment of the peer-to-peer platform may provide a contentmanagement service. A content management service is a non-core(high-level) service that uses the peer group sharing protocol tofacilitate content sharing. In one embodiment, the peer group sharingprotocol does not mandate sharing policies regarding the replication ofcontent, the tracking of content, metadata content (including indexes),and content relationship graphs (such as a hierarchy). In oneembodiment, the content management service may provide these extrafeatures.

[0265] Items of content that represent a network service may be referredto as active content. These items may have additional core elementsabove and beyond the basic elements used for identification andadvertisement. Active content items may be recognized by Multi-PurposeInternet Mail Extensions (MIME) content type and subtype. In oneembodiment, all peer-to-peer platform active contents may have the sametype. In one embodiment, the subtype of an active content may be definedby network service providers and may be used to imply the additionalcore elements belonging to active content documents. In one embodiment,the peer-to-peer platform may give latitude to service providers in thisregard, yielding many service implementation possibilities. Some typicalkinds of elements associated with a network service may include:lifecycle elements, applicable to the start and end of active contentinstances, which may itemize a service's lifecycle and a set ofinstructions used to manipulate the lifecycle; runtime elements definingthe set of local peer runtimes in which this active content can execute(e.g. Java, Solaris, win32 . . . ); user interface elements defining thepolicy or policies by which a user interface is displayed; configurationelements defining the policy or policies by which the service may beconfigured; and storage elements defining the policy or policies theservice may use for persistent and/or transient storage. As previouslydiscussed, each peer may have a core protocol stack, a set of policiesand one or more services. In one embodiment, the peer-to-peer platformmay define a standard service advertisement. In one embodiment, thestandard service advertisement may include lifecycle, runtime, andconfiguration elements.

[0266] Some services may be applications. An application may have a userinterface element and a storage element in addition to the lifecycle,runtime, and configuration elements. In one embodiment, a serviceadvertisement may also include startup information. The startupinformation may direct the local core peer software as to how and whento start the service. For example, some services may be marked (in theadvertisement) to start at boot, while others may be marked to startwhen a message arrives in a specific advertised pipe. In one embodiment,services marked to start when a message arrives in a specific advertisedpipe may be used to implement daemon services that block in thebackground awaiting a message to arrive in an input pipe.

[0267] In one embodiment, the peer-to-peer platform recognizes twolevels of network services: peer services and peer group services. Eachlevel of service may follow the active content typing and advertisementparadigm, but each level may provide a different degree (level) ofreliability. In one embodiment, a peer service may execute on a singlepeer network node only. If that node happens to fail, the service failstoo. This level of service reliability may be acceptable for an embeddeddevice, for example, providing a calendar and email client to a singleuser. A peer group service, on the other hand, may include a collectionof cooperating peer services. If one peer service fails, the collectivepeer group service may not be affected, because chances are that one ormore of the other peer services are healthy. Thus, a peer group servicemay provide consumers (client peers) a highly reliable, fault-tolerantcluster of identical service implementations, servicing multipleconcurrent peer requests. Services of this kind may be defined ascontent within the peer group. Specific service instances (asrepresented by service advertisements) may be obtained using the peerinformation protocol. In one embodiment, peers have the option ofcontacting a specific service instance using the peer informationprotocol, or by contacting a group of services through a special activecontent policy.

[0268] One embodiment of the peer-to-peer platform may useadvertisements. Advertisements are language-neutral abstract datastructures. In one embodiment, advertisements may be defined in a markuplanguage such as XML. In one embodiment, in accordance with a softwareplatform binding, advertisements may be converted to and from nativedata structures such as Java objects or ‘C’ structs. In one embodiment,each protocol specification may describe one or more request andresponse message pairs. Advertisements may be documents exchanged inmessages. The peer-to-peer platform may defines standard advertisementtypes including, but not limited to, policy advertisements, peeradvertisements, peer group advertisements, pipe advertisements, serviceadvertisements, and content advertisements. In one embodiment, subtypesmay be formed from these basic types using schemas (e.g. XML schemas).Subtypes may add extra, richer metadata such as icons. In oneembodiment, the peer-to-peer platform protocols, policies, and coresoftware services may operate only on the basic abstract types.

[0269] In one embodiment, all peer-to-peer platform advertisements arerepresented in XML. XML may provide a means of representing data andmetadata throughout a distributed system. XML may provide universal(software-platform neutral) data because it may be language agnostic,self-describing, strongly-typed and may ensure correct syntax. In oneembodiment, the peer-to-peer platform may use XML for platform resourceadvertisements and for defining the messages exchanged in the protocolset. Existing content types (MIME) may be described using a level ofindirection called metadata. All XML Advertisements may be stronglytyped and validated using XML schemas. In one embodiment, only valid XMLdocuments that descend from the base XML advertisement types may beaccepted by peers supporting the various protocols requiring thatadvertisements be exchanged in messages. Another feature of XML is itsability to be translated in to other encodings such as HTML and WML. Inone embodiment, this feature of XML may be used to provide support forpeers that do not support XML to access advertised resources.

[0270] In one embodiment, advertisements may be composed of a series ofhierarchically arranged elements. Each element may contain its dataand/or additional elements. An element may also have attributes.Attributes may be name-value string pairs. An attribute may be used tostore metadata, which may be used to describe the data within theelement.

[0271] In one embodiment, peer-to-peer platform advertisements maycontain several elements. For example, a default language encodingelement. In one embodiment, all human readable text strings are assumedto be of this encoding, unless otherwise denoted, such as <defaultLanguage>en-CA</default Language>. A resource name (canonical namestring containing a UUID). In one embodiment, a unique128-bit numbernaming the resource within the platform. One or more <Peer Endpoint>elements may be used to access a resource. Peer endpoint elements maycontain a network transport name (for example, a string followed by a‘://’) and a Peer address on transport (for example, a string).

[0272] Peer-to-peer platform advertisements may also contain one or moreoptional elements including, but not limited to, a resource providerdescription element and a resource provider security policy element. Aresource provider description element may be a standard element thatdescribes the provider of the resource. A resource provider securitypolicy element may be a standard element that describes the provider'ssecurity.

[0273] A resource provider description element may include certainelements, such as a title (non-canonical string suitable for UIdisplay), a provider name (canonical name string containing a UUID), aversion (a string), or a URI to obtain additional Info (a string). Inone embodiment, the same set of descriptive information (title, providername, version, and additional info URI) may be used throughout alladvertisement types to describe the particular provider. As an example,a light switch service provider's description element might be:

[0274] <title> ABC Programmable Lighting Switch</title>

[0275] <provider> ABC, an XYZ Company</provider>

[0276] <version>1.0</version>

[0277] <additionalInfo>http://www.XYZ.Com/ABC/x10/</additionalInfo>

[0278] A resource provider security policy element may include anauthentication policy, for example an embedded policy advertisement thatdescribes the manner in which this provider authenticates others, and acredentialing policy, for example an embedded policy advertisement. Theprovider's credentialing policy for enabling others to authenticate theprovider.

[0279]FIG. 14 illustrates one embodiment of a policy advertisement. Apolicy advertisement may describe a behavior, convention, or rulenecessary to interact with a platform resource such as a pipe, service,or peer group. A policy advertisement may be used to help find theproper policy implementation for the requesting peer. This advertisementdocument may be embedded in other types of advertisements. Policystatements made by this document may apply to any resource, service, orpeer group in the platform. Policy and security are orthogonal conceptsto peers, peer groups 304, content, and services in the peer-to-peerplatform.

[0280]FIG. 15 illustrates one embodiment of a peer advertisement. A peeradvertisement describes a peer network node within the peer-to-peerplatform. A peer advertisement may be used to help find the properpolicy implementation for the requesting peer.

[0281] A peer group advertisement describes a collection of cooperatingpeers. FIG. 16 illustrates one embodiment of a peer group advertisement.A peer group advertisement may define the group membership process. Inone embodiment, more than one kind of peer group advertisements mayexist for a single group. In one embodiment, some basic kinds of peergroup advertisement (with information for non-members only) may bepublished most often on the platform. In one embodiment, the only commonelements found in all kinds of peer group advertisements are one or morestandard peer-to-peer platform policies. Once a peer joins a group, thatpeer may receive (depending upon the membership policy) a fullmembership-level advertisement. The full membership advertisement, forexample, might include the policy (may be required of all members) tovote for new member approval.

[0282]FIG. 17 illustrates one embodiment of a pipe advertisement. A pipeadvertisement describes an instance of a peer-to-peer communicationchannel. In one embodiment, a pipe advertisement document may bepublished and obtained using either the content sharing protocol or byembedding it within other advertisements such as a peer groupadvertisement.

[0283] A service advertisement describes an instance of peer behavior orprotocol. FIG. 18 illustrates one embodiment of a service advertisement.In one embodiment, the core services, for example, are made available tothe platform by publishing a service advertisement. This advertisementdocument may be published and obtained using the peer informationprotocol. In one embodiment, service advertisements may include one ormore access policies that describe how to activate and/or use theservice. The core peer services (that each peer implements in order torespond to protocol messages) may advertise their existence in thismanner. In one embodiment, the access method for the core services maybe a schema of valid XML messages accepted by the service.

[0284] A content advertisement describes an item of content storedsomewhere in a peer group. FIG. 19 illustrates one embodiment of acontent advertisement. A content advertisement may be obtained using thepeer group sharing protocol. In one embodiment, all items of contenthave a content identifier. A content identifier may be a uniqueidentifier also known as its canonical name. This name may include apeer group UUID and another name computed, parsed, and maintained bypeer group members only. The content's name implementation within thepeer group is not mandated by peer-to-peer platform. The name may be ahash code, a URI, or any suitable means of uniquely identifying contentwithin a peer group. The entire canonical content name is referred to asa content identifier.

[0285] An item of content's data may be encoded “by value.” In otherwords, the item contains an in-line document that holds the content'sdata. Alternatively, an item of content's data may be encoded “byreference.” In other words, the item contains a URI referencing theactual document holding the data. A size element may be provided foritems of content. In one embodiment, the size is the total size of thecontent in bytes. In one embodiment, the size is a long (unsigned64-bits).

[0286] The “size”, “by-value” and “by-reference” elements are threekinds of elements that may be stored in a content advertisementdocument. An unlimited number of other types of elements may be added toa content advertisement. An item of content may also contain elementssuch as: a type element, for example the MIME type (encoding is deducedfrom type) of the in-line or referenced data; an aboutID element, forexample if the advertised content is another advertisement (based uponits type) this is the content identifier of the referenced contentotherwise the element doesn't exist; and a peer identifier element, forexample if the advertised content is another advertisement (based uponits type), this is the peer endpoint (which is bound to a pipe) on whicha specific instance of the content (identified by aboutID) may exist. Inone embodiment, if an advertisement is to refer to no particularinstance of content, this field may be NULL or the element doesn'texist. This field may be used to help the advertisement dereferencingprocess. Given the unreliable nature of peers, any peer named here mayin fact not be available. When the referenced peer isn't available, asearch of the peer group may be performed (e.g. by a content managementservice) to find another suitable instance of the same content bymatching the content identifier named in the aboutID element.

[0287]FIG. 19 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of anetwork protocol stack in a peer-to-peer platform. In this embodiment,the peer-to-peer platform may include networking protocols. For example,a network peer group discovery protocol 270 that allows a peer todiscover and establish abstract network regions. The peer-to-peerplatform also may include a peer discovery protocol 272 that allows apeer to discover other peers and peer groups 304. This protocol may beused to find members of any kind of peer group, presumably to requestmembership. A policy resolution protocol 274 may also be included,allowing a peer to find an implementation of a peer group behaviorsuitable for its node type (e.g. Java or native). The peer-to-peerplatform may include: a peer information protocol 276 that allows a peerto learn about other peers' capabilities and status; a peer groupmembership protocol 280 that allows a peer to join or leave peer groups304, and to manage membership policies, rights and responsibilities; apeer group pipe protocol 282 that allows a peer group member tocommunicate with other members by exchanging Datagram messages, forexample, on a Datagram message capable networking transport 288; or apeer group content sharing protocol 284 that allows peer group membersto share content. Other embodiments may include other networkingprotocols, and/or may not include some of the protocols described inthis embodiment.

[0288] As illustrated in FIG. 19, the core networking protocols 270-284may be used as a basis for constructing other non-core protocols 286.Applications and services 288 may then be constructed that may use thecore and non-core protocols to participate in the peer-to-peer platform.

[0289] Various embodiments may further include receiving, sending orstoring instructions and/or data implemented in accordance with theforegoing description upon a carrier medium. Generally speaking, acarrier medium may include storage media or memory media such asmagnetic or optical media, e.g., disk or CD-ROM, volatile ornon-volatile media such as RAM (e.g. SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, RDRAM, SRAM,etc.), ROM, etc. as well as transmission media or signals such aselectrical, electromagnetic, or digital signals, conveyed via acommunication medium such as network and/or a wireless link.

[0290] In summary, systems and methods for distributed search in anetwork have been disclosed. It will be appreciated by those of ordinaryskill having the benefit of this disclosure that the illustrativeembodiments described above are capable of numerous variations withoutdeparting from the scope and spirit of the invention. Variousmodifications and changes may be made as would be obvious to a personskilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure. It is intendedthat the following claims be interpreted to embrace all suchmodifications and changes and, accordingly, the specifications anddrawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictivesense.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for searching distributed resources,comprising: receiving a plurality of search requests from requestingnetwork nodes, wherein each search request is formatted in accordancewith a common query protocol; resolving each search request against aplurality of provider registrations to determine one or more matchingprovider registrations for each search request; and routing each searchrequest formatted in accordance with the common query protocol to one ormore provider network nodes indicated by the one or more matchingprovider registrations.
 2. The method as recited in claim 1 furthercomprising: receiving search results in accordance with the common queryprotocol from a plurality of provider network nodes in response to thesearch requests; and routing the search results in accordance with thecommon query protocol to the corresponding requesting network nodes. 3.The method as recited in claim 2, further comprising, prior to saidrouting the search results, collating the search results received inresponse to one of the search requests for one corresponding requestingnetwork node in accordance with the common query protocol.
 4. The methodas recited in claim 2, further comprising, prior to said routing thesearch results, ordering by relevance the search results received inresponse to one of the search requests for the corresponding requestingnetwork node in accordance with the common query protocol.
 5. The methodas recited in claim 4, wherein the search results include relevanceinformation indicating a ranking according to the corresponding providernetwork node, and wherein said ordering the search results includesselecting and ordering at least some of the search results according tothe relevance information.
 6. The method as recited in claim 4, whereinthe corresponding search query includes relevance information indicatingan ordering preference parameter, and wherein said ordering the searchresults includes selecting and ordering at least some of the searchresults according to the relevance information.
 7. The method as recitedin claim 2, further comprising receiving a search result of theplurality of search results from a provider QRP proxy, wherein theprovider QRP proxy receives the search result from one of the one ormore provider network nodes in a format different from the common queryprotocol and sends the search result formatted in accordance with thecommon query protocol.
 8. The method as recited in claim 1, furthercomprising receiving a search request of the plurality of searchrequests from a consumer QRP proxy, wherein the consumer QRP proxyreceives the search request from one of the requesting network nodes ina format different from the common query protocol and sends the searchrequest formatted in accordance with the common query protocol.
 9. Themethod as recited in claim 1, further comprising receiving the pluralityof provider registrations from a plurality of provider network nodesincluding the one or more provider network nodes.
 10. The method asrecited in claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of providerregistrations specifies one or more queryspaces, wherein each queryspacedefines a structure for indicating and matching search criteria.
 11. Themethod as recited in claim 10, wherein one of the plurality of providerregistrations is a matching provider registration if one of the searchrequests includes a search term matching a provider registrationpredicate statement structured according to the queryspace of theprovider registration.
 12. The method as recited in claim 1 performed bya first network hub, wherein said routing each search request includesrouting a search request from the first network hub to a second networkhub configured to receive the search request, resolve the search requestagainst a plurality of second provider registrations to determine one ormore matching second provider registrations, and route the searchrequest to one or more provider network nodes indicated by the one ormore second provider registrations.
 13. The method as recited in claim12, wherein the one or more provider network nodes indicated by the oneor more matching provider registrations include the one or more providernetwork nodes indicated by the one or more matching second providerregistrations.
 14. A method for searching distributed resources,comprising: each of a plurality of consumer nodes in a networktransmitting one or more search requests to a hub node in the network;the hub node receiving each of the one or more search requests andresolving each search request against a plurality of providerregistrations to determine one or more matching provider registrationsfor each search request; the hub node routing each search request to oneor more provider nodes in the network indicated by the one or morematching provider registrations; the one or more provider nodesreceiving the search requests and generating search results in responseto the search requests; and the one or more provider nodes transmittingthe search results to the corresponding consumer nodes.
 15. The methodas recited in claim 14, further comprising: the hub node receiving thesearch results from the one or more provider nodes; and the hub noderouting the search results to the corresponding consumer nodes.
 16. Themethod as recited in claim 15, further comprising, prior to said routingthe search results, collating the search results received in response toone of the search requests for one corresponding requesting node. 17.The method as recited in claim 15, further comprising, prior to saidrouting the search results, ordering the search results received inresponse to one of the search requests for the corresponding requestingnetwork node.
 18. The method as recited in claim 17, wherein the searchresults include relevance information indicating a ranking according tothe corresponding provider node, and wherein said ordering the searchresults includes selecting and ordering at least some search resultsfrom the search results according to the relevance information.
 19. Themethod as recited in claim 17, wherein the corresponding search queryincludes relevance information indicating an ordering preferenceparameter, and wherein said ordering the search results includesselecting and ordering at least some of the search results according tothe relevance information.
 20. The method as recited in claim 15,further comprising receiving a search result of the plurality of searchresults from a provider QRP proxy in the network, wherein the providerQRP proxy receives the search result from one of the one or moreprovider nodes in a format different from the common query protocol andsends the search result formatted in accordance with the common queryprotocol.
 21. The method as recited in claim 15, further comprisingreceiving a search request of the plurality of search requests from aconsumer QRP proxy in the network, wherein the consumer QRP proxyreceives the search request from one of the requesting nodes in a formatdifferent from the common query protocol and sends the search requestformatted in accordance with the common query protocol.
 22. The methodas recited in claim 14, further comprising receiving the plurality ofprovider registrations from a plurality of provider nodes including theone or more provider nodes.
 23. The method as recited in claim 14,wherein each of the plurality of provider registrations specifies one ormore queryspaces, wherein each queryspace defines a structure forindicating and matching search criteria.
 24. The method as recited inclaim 23, wherein one of the provider registrations is a matchingprovider registration if the search requests includes a search termmatching a provider registration predicate statement structuredaccording to the queryspace of the provider registration.
 25. The methodas recited in claim 14, wherein said routing each search requestincludes routing a search request from the hub node to a second hub nodein the network configured to receive the search request, resolve thesearch request against a plurality of second provider registrations todetermine one or more matching second provider registrations, and routethe search request to one or more provider nodes indicated by the one ormore second provider registrations.
 26. The method as recited in claim25, wherein the one or more provider nodes indicated by the one or morematching provider registrations includes the one or more provider nodesindicated by the one or more matching second provider registrations. 27.The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the search requests receivedby the hub node are formatted in accordance with a common queryprotocol.
 28. A system in a network, comprising: a storage deviceincluding a plurality of provider registrations; an interface configuredto receive a plurality of search requests from a plurality of requestingnodes in the network and to transmit each of the plurality of searchrequests to one or more provider nodes in the network; and a resolverconfigured to resolve each of the plurality of search requests againstthe plurality of provider registrations to determine one or morematching provider registrations each indicating a corresponding providernode.
 29. The system as recited in claim 28, wherein the resolver isconfigured to receive the plurality of provider registrations from aplurality of provider nodes including the one or more correspondingprovider nodes.
 30. The system as recited in claim 28, furthercomprising an adapter configured to generate a search request formattedin accordance with a common query protocol from a search requestformatted in accordance with a different protocol, wherein one of theplurality of search requests from a plurality of requesting nodes isformatted in accordance with a requesting node protocol different fromthe common query protocol.
 31. The system as recited in claim 28,wherein the interface is further configured to receive one or moresearch responses in response to each of the plurality of search requestsfrom one or more of the corresponding one or more provider nodes. 32.The system as recited in claim 31, wherein the interface is configuredto collate for each search query the corresponding one or more searchresponses received in response to the search query into an aggregatesearch response.
 33. The system as recited in claim 32, wherein theinterface is configured to transmit each aggregate search responsegenerated in response to each search query to the correspondingrequesting nodes.
 34. A distributed information search mechanismcomprising: means for receiving a plurality of search requests formattedin accordance with a common query protocol from a plurality ofrequesting nodes in a network; means for resolving each of the pluralityof search requests against a plurality of provider registrations todetermine one or more matching provider registrations for each of theplurality of search requests; and means for routing each of theplurality of search requests formatted in accordance with the commonquery protocol to one or more provider nodes in the network indicated bythe one or more matching provider registrations.
 35. The distributedinformation search mechanism as recited in claim 34, further comprisingmeans for receiving the plurality of provider registration from acorresponding plurality of provider nodes including the one or moreprovider nodes.
 36. The distributed information search mechanism asrecited in claim 34, further comprising means for amending each of theplurality of search requests to identify the corresponding provider nodeof the one or more provider nodes prior to said routing each of theplurality of search requests.
 37. The distributed information searchmechanism as recited in claim 34, further comprising means for receivingone or more search responses in response to each of the plurality ofsearch requests from one or more of the corresponding one or moreprovider network nodes.
 38. The network as recited in claim 37, furthercomprising means for routing the one or more search response received inresponse to corresponding search requests to the correspondingrequesting network nodes.
 39. An article of manufacture comprisinginstruction executable for: receiving a plurality of search requestsfrom requesting nodes in a network, wherein each search request isformatted in accordance with a common query protocol; resolving eachsearch request against a plurality of provider registrations todetermine one or more matching provider registrations for each searchrequest; and routing each search request formatted in accordance withthe common query protocol to one or more provider nodes in the networkindicated by the one or more matching provider registrations.
 40. Thearticle of manufacture as recited in claim 39 further comprisinginstructions executable for: receiving search results in accordance withthe common query protocol from one or more of the one or more providernodes in response to the search requests; and routing the search resultsin accordance with the common query protocol to the correspondingrequesting nodes.